Blame Xtina. After hearing the never-ending thrashing my friends and I have given to the movie Bloodrayne and its director Uwe Boll, I finally decided that she shouldn't take our word for it, and experience it for herself firsthand.

So I paid a couple bucks to rent Bloodrayne, The Directors Cut (James suggested it might be better than the original, "Maybe they put the plot back in!" he suggested, which did not make me more enthusiastic to see it...) It took some coaxing on my part (and some bad television) to make Xtina agree to watch it. I was laughing before I loaded the disk into the player.

Oh, the horror! The horrible accents, I mean. Michael Madsen sounded like he was from New York!

Oh the horrible acting! Kristanna Loken wasn't even able to act Stoic!

Oh, the Bad Bad Bad ADR!

Oh, the horrible delivery of lines that sounded like they were read off pieces of paper handed to the actor one word at a time!

Oh, MEATLOAF ADAY!

And lets not forget that somehow Uwe Boll started with this and ended up with this!

Oh the plot LEAPS of faith that were Jet-Propelled-Across-Time-And-Relative-Dimensions-In-Space!

...and yet...a strange thing happened.

I did not find it as bad as I did at the theatre. Not remotely. Somehow, watching Bloodrayne on a TV set instead of a big screen, it seemed more like a bad episode of Xena Warrior Princess. Reviewing it as a B-Movie instead of a $10 Blockbuster, put it in a more acceptable perspective.

The movie had some large-scale sweeping shots, clearly done from a helicopter. There were some large scenes of mounted cavalry, and decent sets. It had Ben Kingsly in it. (Who I had Just seen the previous day as "The Rabbi" in Lucky Number Sleven ) Hell, he wasn't even half bad. The CG was B-Movie quality, and the props were ridiculously B-Movie funny.

Don't get me wrong; there's a reason the movies initial release was cut from 2500 theatres down to 985. There is a reason it went from release to cable in less than a year, bypassing HBO entirely.

The reason is that it sucked. As a real Theatre-Release-Type movie, it sucked.

But hand to Dog, as a B-Movie, its fine. If it cost 50K to make, and went straight to DVD I never would have been so hard on it.

After the movie, we watched the bonus feature, "Dinner with Uwe Boll" where a couple ass-kissing fans got to eat dinner and speak with the man, the myth, the legend himself, Uwe Boll. After seeing it, I think I understand Uwe better. I think he knows what he is, and he isn't deluded about the kinds of movies he is making. He knows that the public views him as a hack filmmaker, cutting as many corners as possible (including hiring prostitutes as actors, because they are cheap and will do Anything, compared to people in the Actors Guild.) and no doubt pocketing as much as he can.

He also explained why all his previous movies sucked; the writers. And that plural is no mistake, because Uwe Boll seems to send scripts through several different people for re-re-rewriting, which no doubt contributes to his disjointed and convoluted plotlines.

But don't worry, for his upcoming masterpiece, "Postal" he will be writing the script himself.

And keep your eyes out for Bloodrayne II (set in the Wild West!) which went straight to DVD, and the rumored Bloodrayne III which might actually have something to do with video game it was based on.

Oh, the horror...

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: indie movies, movie reviews