Bloodrayne -- 2005 -- R

I subjected myself to another Uwe Boll flick, and this time, I am met with some confusion. Why? Is it the movie? Not really. This was a film with some good things and some bad things to it, but not altogether as bad as what the rumors seem to indicate. To confirm this, I went ahead and broke my own rules and read some reviews to try and determine what it is that everyone hates.

First, my own opinions. I always watch with the story in mind, so as long as the production isn't distracting, I watch the story itself. We have a fair amount of cheesy dialogue and cliche plot devices to get things moving, most notably the fortune teller who uses tarot cards to get our protagonist on the right track, and comments on a prophecy of some sort, which as anyone with any religious knowledge might know, prophecy from sources other than God tend to be somewhat unreliable. Also, this particular prophecy plays very little into the plot at hand.

The battles tended to be very bloody...almost overkill bloody in terms of how graphic it all was. Do we understand that stuff like this probably went on back in the time setting this movie was supposed to be in? Sure. Do we really need to go that far with it? Not really, but that's my opinion.

The actual plot of the film, once it got moving, felt very video gamish in nature right down to mini-tasks, big enemies, items to collect, abilities enhanced when items collected, etc., and for the most part, I didn't have a problem with the overall plot. The characters were okay; I would say about average for a film like this. We got some backstory and weaknesses of some of the characters, which helps to make them a little more human, though a couple of our main human trio were left almost completely blank.

We had a sex scene that was so completely out of place and came out of no where that it seems to have been just thrown in for the sake of having a sex scene. The only point it seemed to serve was giving our heroine a connection with one of the humans, which could have been done a hundred other ways to acheive the same effect without the tastelessness.

What really ruined the film for me was the ending. And not really the plot ending either, it was the ending tacked onto the film that did it. Rayne sits on this throne, and it felt kind of pointless, though I got the symbology. But what happened next was this long, long, long montage sequence recounting some of the more grotesque scenes and even some that were not in the film proper. It felt completely pointless and ruined what was a passable film.

So in the end, while I don't understand all the hate for this movie, it was definitely not one of the greats. Without the final montage to remember, it would have been a lot better, and it appears Uwe needs to get a decent script under him. His main weakness is allowing these marginal scripts where he might actually do okay with a solid screenplay at his fingertips. Oh well.