Dear God, what have I done?
Jun. 23rd, 2006 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenSo, our first piece of apartment mail was delivered yesterday. It's not our lease, which I need to find out about soon, nor was it any of the magazines or bills I had diverted to the new location.
It was my Netflix'd DVD of Bloodrayne.
This is the set-up for a joke, one of those "How [fill in derogatory adjective] was it?" hee-haw type jokes. How bad was it?
Kristanna Loken really looked the part, I'll give her that. They even preserved Rayne's practically-impossible-to-use weapons for the most part. That they looked like pieces of dull, punched-out metal (that probably wouldn't be able to kill a fly with the flat side) is the least of this movie's problems.
Problem the first: Michelle Rodriguez attempting an English-affected accent. She never went for the full accent, just a twang, so it sounded ridiculous. Ridiculous is the key word with this movie. Every time I use it, feel free to have a Pee-Wee's Playhouse-style freakout. I know I will. And, before we move on from Michelle Rodriguez's character: her father was played by Billy Zane. I suppose the conceit of the movie being shot in the middle ages allows for a man to have had a child by age twelve. Great appearance by Billy Zane. He seemed to be wondering how the hell he was going to keep a straight face and what the hell had crawled up his bald head and nested there. WORST WIG EVER AWARD: Billy Zane in Bloodrayne.
To his credit, he had the best line in the whole movie. A guy comes in and chucks a severed head at Billy Zane to show he's killed the Zane's delivery guy. Then he chucks the message at the Zane when the Zane sasses him. The Zane spaketh, "Stop throwing things at me." No, I am not kidding, and, yes that was the best line. That's why this movie was ridiculous (AHHH!!!! SECRET WORD!!!! AAAAAHHHH!!!!!).
There's so much that's gleefully bad in this, I was a fit of giggles. The sex scene was hysterically bad. Rayne corners the single guy about her age who shared two seconds of angst with her, which, of course, makes him prime fucking meat to a Dhampir. She pins him against the bars of a cell then uses one of the few shows of Dhampir strength being greater than human strength as she proceeds to hold herself against him by gripping the bars on either side of his head. The girl gets some lift, too, because she gets those vampire-mojo super tits up into the guy's face.
It's just that when Director-auteur Uwe Boll backs off from this oh-so-haaawt scene, I burst out into tears of laughter. Shot from behind the guy's head so we see Kristanna Loken's fake-looking chest, Rayne looks like she's hopping up and down about two feet away from the guy she's supposedly connected to at the hips!!!! No, for serious, yo! It's like it was a retard dance or something: Make silly face, grunt, undulate at a distance, hop, repeat. Seriously, even the guy looked embarrassed, and for him the whole thing was looking pretty sweet as Rayne started the whole thing by ripping off his pants and staying below camera level for a little longer than necessary.
Not that that was Rayne's only action. There was plenty of LEZBIAN encounters for the copper-headed killer babe. The vampire she tricks to her by her oh-so-sexy-not-suspicious-at-all beckoning? Being thrown on top of Meat Loaf (dude, I haven't even gotten to MEAT LOAF's cameo yet!?)'s pile of nekkid vampire prostitutes (true story: the women in the scene were real prostitutes because they were cheaper to get than actresses)? Her oh-so-subtle foreplay fighting with Michelle Rodriguez? About the only thing that derived from the game was her gratuitous humping of the people she was drinking blood from, and that was tasteful compared to some of the other encounters.
And here, I must mention THE LOAF. Picture Bob from Fight Club with David Lee Roth's Van Halen-day hair--teased out, crimped, bleach-blonde. Now, picture him surrounded by stark naked women (hard to imagine, isn't it?) on a giant bed, petting him and his bloated carcass. Are you all sterile? Thought so. I think the prostitutes worked in a way Uwe Boll wasn't expecting; the guy who came to talk to Meat Loaf (not his character--did he even have a character?) looked distinctly uncomfortable when the charitable Loaf draped a whore around him. I'd be uncomfortable, too--that probably costs something, and who knows about what diseases some prostitute out in Romania has?
Continuing the strange sexual metaphors, there's Michael Madsen's strange phallic connection to his sword. He kept holding it by this leather guard that's above the cross guard (is that the right word? the part that sticks out 90 degrees from the blade and protects your hands) and picking up his sword and just holding it, as if he really regretted having to whack or hack anyone with it. I get the feeling the actor just really, really liked getting to play with his sword. It made his wiser-than-thou older teacher dude character a tad...shall we say 'ridiculous' (YAAAAYYYY!!!)? Yes, we shall. RIDICULOUS (!!!!)!!!!!
Fighting was dreadful both before and after Rayne was properly instructed (bamp-chicka-bomp-bom!) in the art of weilding her forearms as deadly weapons, and Kristanna Loken couldn't have been a stiffer, less skilled fighter than if her skeleton really were made of metal. They had some closeups of someone dressed in Rayne's costume throwing the blades around, and whoever she was, she was good, but they intercut them with Loken, and, instead of making it seem like it was her all along, it just showed up even further how bad Loken was and how not that chick she was.
Violence was somewhere above Evil Dead but without the Raimi sense of humor about it, and below the believability of a Romero film--and, yes, again, I am totally serious. I'd place it at about a Return of the Living Dead type realism. People bleeding profusely enough to make the Blood-Spattered Bride flush, even when their entire torso had already been hacked to bits; people being completely drained of blood in about two seconds from a vampire bite; the aluminium-foil-covered cardboard swords making these huge gashes with almost no force. That's when people/vampires weren't being picked off by a wrist-guard-mounted crossbow or several long bows that bent more than the strings when they were loaded with arrows. REDONKULOUS (YAaaya...?)
Basically, the magically talented German elf Uwe Boll managed to take a plotless video game and make it even plotlessier. I wouldn't argue that Bloodrayne the game is driven by anything but a hot Dhampir chick in tight vinyl, but I actually prefer the scattershot nonstory of an action videogame to what Boll constructed out of it. But, then again, the same thing was true of House of the Dead--I preferred the bad voice acting and the ancient graphics and beating the fucking Wizard OMG what the F? he was so difficult to beat to that movie.
Still, why move Rayne backwards in time to some indeterminate middle ages-y type land? What's wrong, or shall I say 'less ridiculous' (YAAAAAAY!!!!), about having it set in the time frame of the first game and have Rayne fighting evil zombie Creoles and Nazis? I mean, at least you can get behind her slaughtering Nazis, right? I bet that's what the development team thought when they made the game:
Developer 1: Well, we have the rendering done for this hot-as-fuck character. Now what?
Developer 2: I suppose she needs, like, enemies to kill or some shit. Then we can show off her crotch when she spin kicks them to death.
Developer 1: Yeah, I saw that spin kick. That's hot.
Developer 2: Ahem, enemies?
Developer 1: She doesn't even split her pants....say what? Oh, well, just make them really evil. Hot chicks look even hotter fighting really bad guys. Like you ever see those ads where muscle chicks fire guns at Communists? Fucking brilliant, man.
Developer 2: ...Uh, Communists aren't the bad guys any more. At least, I think China will have something to say if we start gunning them down.
Developer 1: Is China important?
Developer 2: Their sweatshop labor keeps the prices of our game boxes low.
Developer 1: Damn. Okay, who did we fight before the Communists?
Developer 2: Well, that's a long and complicated story, but the short version is: Nazis.
Developer 1: Any of them left around to complain?
Developer 2: Not so's anyone would care.
Developer 1: Nazis! Brilliant! I fucking love--er, hate those guys! Make it happen.
Developer 2: And the half-vampire chick hates the Third Reich because...?
Developer 1: ...is that important?
Developer 2: Not especially, no. Everyone hates the Nazis. You don't really need a reason.
Developer 1: Damn, we've stumbled on the Holy Grail of pointless game villainy! We can kill them and nobody cares! And we don't need a reason to kill them either!
Developer 2: We'll write some storyboards for the why, but we won't have to explain it. If people buy it, they can find out why in the sequel.
Developer 1: Totally. This chick is too hot for a single game.
Developer 2: Agreed. We have no souls, you know that?
Developer 1: Hey, I'm not complaining.
Developer 2: Yeah, me neither.
It was my Netflix'd DVD of Bloodrayne.
This is the set-up for a joke, one of those "How [fill in derogatory adjective] was it?" hee-haw type jokes. How bad was it?
Kristanna Loken really looked the part, I'll give her that. They even preserved Rayne's practically-impossible-to-use weapons for the most part. That they looked like pieces of dull, punched-out metal (that probably wouldn't be able to kill a fly with the flat side) is the least of this movie's problems.
Problem the first: Michelle Rodriguez attempting an English-affected accent. She never went for the full accent, just a twang, so it sounded ridiculous. Ridiculous is the key word with this movie. Every time I use it, feel free to have a Pee-Wee's Playhouse-style freakout. I know I will. And, before we move on from Michelle Rodriguez's character: her father was played by Billy Zane. I suppose the conceit of the movie being shot in the middle ages allows for a man to have had a child by age twelve. Great appearance by Billy Zane. He seemed to be wondering how the hell he was going to keep a straight face and what the hell had crawled up his bald head and nested there. WORST WIG EVER AWARD: Billy Zane in Bloodrayne.
To his credit, he had the best line in the whole movie. A guy comes in and chucks a severed head at Billy Zane to show he's killed the Zane's delivery guy. Then he chucks the message at the Zane when the Zane sasses him. The Zane spaketh, "Stop throwing things at me." No, I am not kidding, and, yes that was the best line. That's why this movie was ridiculous (AHHH!!!! SECRET WORD!!!! AAAAAHHHH!!!!!).
There's so much that's gleefully bad in this, I was a fit of giggles. The sex scene was hysterically bad. Rayne corners the single guy about her age who shared two seconds of angst with her, which, of course, makes him prime fucking meat to a Dhampir. She pins him against the bars of a cell then uses one of the few shows of Dhampir strength being greater than human strength as she proceeds to hold herself against him by gripping the bars on either side of his head. The girl gets some lift, too, because she gets those vampire-mojo super tits up into the guy's face.
It's just that when Director-auteur Uwe Boll backs off from this oh-so-haaawt scene, I burst out into tears of laughter. Shot from behind the guy's head so we see Kristanna Loken's fake-looking chest, Rayne looks like she's hopping up and down about two feet away from the guy she's supposedly connected to at the hips!!!! No, for serious, yo! It's like it was a retard dance or something: Make silly face, grunt, undulate at a distance, hop, repeat. Seriously, even the guy looked embarrassed, and for him the whole thing was looking pretty sweet as Rayne started the whole thing by ripping off his pants and staying below camera level for a little longer than necessary.
Not that that was Rayne's only action. There was plenty of LEZBIAN encounters for the copper-headed killer babe. The vampire she tricks to her by her oh-so-sexy-not-suspicious-at-all beckoning? Being thrown on top of Meat Loaf (dude, I haven't even gotten to MEAT LOAF's cameo yet!?)'s pile of nekkid vampire prostitutes (true story: the women in the scene were real prostitutes because they were cheaper to get than actresses)? Her oh-so-subtle foreplay fighting with Michelle Rodriguez? About the only thing that derived from the game was her gratuitous humping of the people she was drinking blood from, and that was tasteful compared to some of the other encounters.
And here, I must mention THE LOAF. Picture Bob from Fight Club with David Lee Roth's Van Halen-day hair--teased out, crimped, bleach-blonde. Now, picture him surrounded by stark naked women (hard to imagine, isn't it?) on a giant bed, petting him and his bloated carcass. Are you all sterile? Thought so. I think the prostitutes worked in a way Uwe Boll wasn't expecting; the guy who came to talk to Meat Loaf (not his character--did he even have a character?) looked distinctly uncomfortable when the charitable Loaf draped a whore around him. I'd be uncomfortable, too--that probably costs something, and who knows about what diseases some prostitute out in Romania has?
Continuing the strange sexual metaphors, there's Michael Madsen's strange phallic connection to his sword. He kept holding it by this leather guard that's above the cross guard (is that the right word? the part that sticks out 90 degrees from the blade and protects your hands) and picking up his sword and just holding it, as if he really regretted having to whack or hack anyone with it. I get the feeling the actor just really, really liked getting to play with his sword. It made his wiser-than-thou older teacher dude character a tad...shall we say 'ridiculous' (YAAAAYYYY!!!)? Yes, we shall. RIDICULOUS (!!!!)!!!!!
Fighting was dreadful both before and after Rayne was properly instructed (bamp-chicka-bomp-bom!) in the art of weilding her forearms as deadly weapons, and Kristanna Loken couldn't have been a stiffer, less skilled fighter than if her skeleton really were made of metal. They had some closeups of someone dressed in Rayne's costume throwing the blades around, and whoever she was, she was good, but they intercut them with Loken, and, instead of making it seem like it was her all along, it just showed up even further how bad Loken was and how not that chick she was.
Violence was somewhere above Evil Dead but without the Raimi sense of humor about it, and below the believability of a Romero film--and, yes, again, I am totally serious. I'd place it at about a Return of the Living Dead type realism. People bleeding profusely enough to make the Blood-Spattered Bride flush, even when their entire torso had already been hacked to bits; people being completely drained of blood in about two seconds from a vampire bite; the aluminium-foil-covered cardboard swords making these huge gashes with almost no force. That's when people/vampires weren't being picked off by a wrist-guard-mounted crossbow or several long bows that bent more than the strings when they were loaded with arrows. REDONKULOUS (YAaaya...?)
Basically, the magically talented German elf Uwe Boll managed to take a plotless video game and make it even plotlessier. I wouldn't argue that Bloodrayne the game is driven by anything but a hot Dhampir chick in tight vinyl, but I actually prefer the scattershot nonstory of an action videogame to what Boll constructed out of it. But, then again, the same thing was true of House of the Dead--I preferred the bad voice acting and the ancient graphics and beating the fucking Wizard OMG what the F? he was so difficult to beat to that movie.
Still, why move Rayne backwards in time to some indeterminate middle ages-y type land? What's wrong, or shall I say 'less ridiculous' (YAAAAAAY!!!!), about having it set in the time frame of the first game and have Rayne fighting evil zombie Creoles and Nazis? I mean, at least you can get behind her slaughtering Nazis, right? I bet that's what the development team thought when they made the game:
Developer 1: Well, we have the rendering done for this hot-as-fuck character. Now what?
Developer 2: I suppose she needs, like, enemies to kill or some shit. Then we can show off her crotch when she spin kicks them to death.
Developer 1: Yeah, I saw that spin kick. That's hot.
Developer 2: Ahem, enemies?
Developer 1: She doesn't even split her pants....say what? Oh, well, just make them really evil. Hot chicks look even hotter fighting really bad guys. Like you ever see those ads where muscle chicks fire guns at Communists? Fucking brilliant, man.
Developer 2: ...Uh, Communists aren't the bad guys any more. At least, I think China will have something to say if we start gunning them down.
Developer 1: Is China important?
Developer 2: Their sweatshop labor keeps the prices of our game boxes low.
Developer 1: Damn. Okay, who did we fight before the Communists?
Developer 2: Well, that's a long and complicated story, but the short version is: Nazis.
Developer 1: Any of them left around to complain?
Developer 2: Not so's anyone would care.
Developer 1: Nazis! Brilliant! I fucking love--er, hate those guys! Make it happen.
Developer 2: And the half-vampire chick hates the Third Reich because...?
Developer 1: ...is that important?
Developer 2: Not especially, no. Everyone hates the Nazis. You don't really need a reason.
Developer 1: Damn, we've stumbled on the Holy Grail of pointless game villainy! We can kill them and nobody cares! And we don't need a reason to kill them either!
Developer 2: We'll write some storyboards for the why, but we won't have to explain it. If people buy it, they can find out why in the sequel.
Developer 1: Totally. This chick is too hot for a single game.
Developer 2: Agreed. We have no souls, you know that?
Developer 1: Hey, I'm not complaining.
Developer 2: Yeah, me neither.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 08:03 pm (UTC)Maybe when
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 03:43 am (UTC)...
Fine, I'll laugh at it myself. BLAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 04:56 pm (UTC)The DVD of that movie that my mom bought my dad for Father's Day came with a whoopie cushion...to distract you and amuse the way the movie doesn't, perhaps?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 03:45 pm (UTC)Personally, I've been lucky with games I buy for the hot chicks turning out to be actual good games. Tomb Raider. DOAX. Other media, too, like the comic Danger Girl.
I wouldn't bother with the Bloodrayne movie, though. The topless Bloodrayne pic in Playboy last year (now an annual girls of video games feature) was much better cross-promotion, I'm sure.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:54 pm (UTC)Oh no! Now it's in my Netflix queue too! Unleash the horror!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 01:40 am (UTC)Still, I don't think it would have been better if Milla had done it (I hear her name bandied about before it got handed to Uwe Boll). She doesn't have the--shall we say "assets" that a fuller figured woman does.
And the Uwe Boll story, if you've not seen it?
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2649
Fucking hilarious.