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dir: Len Wiseman
Sure she looks cool all in leather holding two guns. Even I would look cool all in leather holding two guns. And I ain't cool.
Read here, my people, read and weep...

It is certainly not worth the wait. Released here in Ostraya about
four months after its Stateside release, instead of maturing in the
interim like wine it has festered like a dead possum in some
particularly inaccessible part of your roof. And whilst it's not so
bad that it made me want to punch other patrons for being as dumb as
myself for buying a ticket, it didn't leave me with a feeling of deep
joy in my underpants.

Speaking of which Kate Beckinsale is certainly cute, and isn't too a bad
actress, and despite the other critiques that I've read she isn't the
problem with this film. She sells most of the scenes where she's
supposed to look nasty (in a hot way) and when she's emoting and
stuff. Of course she mostly looks ridiculous in the action scenes,
having absolutely no range of mobility in those tight fetish outfits.
When she's running in so-called 'action' scenes she's looks about as
convincing a mover as Stephen Hawking with none of the acrobatics that
he possesses in comparison. But she's okay.

Not good enough to salvage the film, unfortunately. When people talk
about films that are all style and no substance, this film should be
used as the benchmark. It's not that there isn't a plot, in fact there
is way more plot than a film like this deserves. There's so much plot
in fact that the audience is sitting there thinking "Er, this is
supposed to be a vampire film, so do something entertaining,
cocksuckers". The plot has all the energy, verve and interest of a
particularly unlikable and senile grandparent that no-one visits. With
good reason. Certain screenwriters need to learn that simply having a
long and boring plot doesn't give your story substance or
significance. This isn't The Hours or 21 Grams for the
love of criminy.

This film has a plot that thinks it's way more engaging and
interesting than it actually is. It's not so much complicated as
cumbersome and lazy. There are large slabs of exposition which didn't
really work organically in the overall scope of the film, with
characters talking in dull monologues about matters we couldn't
possibly care about just to pad out the story, such as it is.

The action scenes, except for a few seconds at the very end, are dull,
unimaginative and certainly uninspired. People keep saying this is a
Matrix rip-off except with vampires and werewolves, but frankly having
a girl in leather shooting guns isn't enough to warrant the worthy
label of 'rip-off': that's giving the film too much credit. In all of
her gun scenes the character that Beckinsale plays essentially stands
still there shooting. She rarely moves. When she does she either
casually saunters forwards at a leisurely pace or backwards. There are
no gun play acrobatics and certainly nothing to distinguish the action
here from any other action film set in a more mundane locale. Like one
of the Beverly Hills Cops films from the late 80s - early 90s. Surely
everyone remembers Beverly Hills Cop 4 where Eddie Murphy as Axel
Foley questions his sexuality in the back of a car with the help of a
friendly neighbourhood she-male?

That was a classic, that was. And it had better action for those
people that like that sort of thing. This film on the other hand has
less going for it.

This is the plot, summarised as succinctly as possible for those of
you that are very busy people: in some alternate reality Earth that's
pretty much the same as Prague on our Earth and has Bacardi Rum
(product placement at film's beginning), vampires and werewolves (here
called Lycans) have been at war for centuries. Our hero Selene, played
by the very bony but still edible Kate, is a Death Dealer, a vampire
in the front lines in the war against the hairy ones. Interestingly,
all the Lycans in the film are male, and dress like homeless people
and live in the sewers. All the vampires are of course beautiful,
elegant and very well-dressed and swan around in lovingly decorated
mansions drinking blood from crystalware. It's Class War all over
again.

Anyhoo, Selene spots some hairy men, tries to kill them. They're
following a human guy around called Michael that Selene thinks is hot.
Blah blah blah, in the end everyone except Michael and Selene are
essentially dead. It takes two fucking hours to get there. Two hours?
That's 120 minutes that I could have spent more productively in front
of a pokie machine at the casino. That's 7000 seconds that I could
have spent more enjoyably sitting in a bus shelter listening to an
ancient crone of a woman with Alzheimer's tell me over and over again
about her son Emmett who went to Port Moresby after the War and came
back to Ostraya a headhunter in more ways than one.

It certainly wasn't the most enjoyable time of my life. It would be
untrue to say that I was bored. I wasn't. It's not a boring film. It's
just not a particularly good one.

For those of us that see every vampire film that ever comes out, this
is certainly at the same high level of quality that 99% of the others
are. In other words, it's mildly entertaining, with plenty of lovely
outfits, but no lasting significance or enjoyment. Like having sex
with someone who's almost passed out. It's firmly aimed at the
contemporary idea of what goth is, which is an entire movie filmed
exclusively with blue filters to give it that 'goffic' look and with
industrial techno in place of actual mood, atmosphere, themes or
ideas.

People run around a lot. They're running from some people, running
towards other people, none of it is really clear. Many times people
leave a place only to go straight back, with nothing achieved in the
mean time. So we get to see our apparent heroine driving to a mansion,
then driving away from the mansion, then walking back, then driving
away from it again in a different car, then coming back, it just goes
on and on. If there is a better example of cumbersome storytelling,
please, someone send me the proof.

Also, within this gothic metropolis, it's always night and it's always
raining. They talk about sunshine and the Lycans use it as a weapon in
bullets against the vampires, but there's not a single day shown. If
it is an alternate reality Earth, then why does a character say "Jesus
Christ!" at one point? Also, where was all the fucking swearing? No
swearing, no nudity, no sex, no hearts being ripped out or arms ripped
off. It's hard to get enthused about a vampire movie that's about as
graphic as an episode of Rugrats or the Telly Tubbies, except with
less of the gender politics.

Every new entry in the vampire genre makes up its own rules. Here they
have heartbeats, can drown, have reflections, can cry but don't fly.
All of the mystical aspects of it are discarded in favour of a bunch
of leather clad people swaning around with big freakin' guns. Vampires
and Lycans aren't supposed to attack humans, and vampirism and
lycanthropy is transmitted as a virus in the bloodstream. This plays a
part in the overall story. But don't start getting all wet, it's not
that compelling.

The other main lead in the film is called Michael, played by Scott
Speedman. He's not too bad, for someone whose claim to fame is that he
played a character on an awful television show called Felicity. Now
Felicity was a truly terrifying show. Little in this film is as
frightening, as mortifyingly soul crushingly terrible as that
unlamented cancelled series. Thus by comparison Speedman has a much
easier job here. He basically has to look all hunky and be all chained
up. In a way he's the film's damsel in distress. Until the very end
where he turns into Oprah Winfrey or something, I'm not sure I might
have dozed off at that point.

There are no laughs in this film, it is played utterly straight with
no tongue in no-one's cheeks. There is only one laugh, at the very end
during the climactic battle, but I was the only person laughing in the
cinema, so maybe it wasn't that funny. Most of the characters do
reasonably okay bumping into the plot as they stagger around the
various sets. Two characters in particular were fucking awful,
Selene's current boss Kraven played by Irish actor Shane Brolly is
particularly awful, almost to the point of being unintentionally
comical. Almost. Also, Selene's sire and mentor Viktor is terrible,
deeply fucking bad. Bill Nighy is badly miscast in the role. I got the
feeling he had no idea where he was most of the time, and seemed to be
playing it like it was dinner theatre. He constantly fucked up his
line readings and looked more confused than Liza Minelli on her
wedding night.

The one actor that stands out is Michael Sheen, who plays Lucien, the
leader of the Lycan clan. He actually invests some heart and pathos
into a role and in a film that certainly doesn't deserve it. He
deserved to be in a much better film than this.

Overall, let me put it this way: this film isn't as good as Blade, but
is better than Blade II. That's damning with faint praise indeed.
Figure it out based on that highly erudite and scientifically accurate
scale. Still, they set up an inevitable sequel in the last moments of
the film, so who knows, maybe in the sequel they'll manage to put some
decent action in it. It's a radical idea, I know, for an action film.

So keep waiting, you crazy kiddies, with your multiple facial
piercings and your complete Cradle of Filth record collections, that
perfect vampire movie is still just over the horizon, because sure as
shit, this film isn't it.

Still, it's a better film than Matrix: Revolutions, so how bad can it
be? :)

5 rip offs of scenes from Equilibrium, Resident Evil and The
Crow out of 10. Ripping-off the ripper-offs, one day Hollywood's going
to disappear up its own anus.