Bloodrayne: The Musical starring Gene Hackman

dontEATnachos and I saw Bloodrayne last night. If I were the type of person who used one word to describe movies, then that word would be: hypertension.

If you thought the Kill Bill movies were bad because of all the blood, well then you'll love Bloodrayne. Every single cut and clash on anyone but the, ahem, heroine produces voluminous amounts of pressurized blood. Pretty much every peon had at least 3 gallons spray from them for even the smallest slash. These people were fountaining blood, probably close to ten feet. It was pretty silly. Doubly so because you got plenty of opportunity to see this happen. I guess Uwe Boll is not a fan of the old standby, "if they're not important characters, they die offscreen or in the background."

This brings me to the fighting and swords. I finally figured out, during the training quasi-montage, what bugs me about some old television shows and this movie. Swords. If they look like crap, you have lost. The swords looked like they had been cut from slabs of sheetmetal. They were blatantly thick and notched. I guess the notching means that someone, somewhere used them for fighting and perhaps even training. You can't really tell from watching the movie. It seemed more like the actors were given their swords and then given a bunch of Sinbad and Zena episodes and told to watch them and then imitate and improvise for the fight scenes. "Don't worry, we'll pack the extras with so much blood that as soon as you graze one of them, it'll look like you just attacked a blood bank." Not a single one of the swords looked even remotely cool. They looked like the swords I used to make in my garage with old fence slats and silver spray paint. This just enhanced the overall silliness of the fight scenes.

As I said above, the fight scenes looked like someone had given the actors a cursory introduction to previous movies with sword fights and then said, "You're actors, go act like your fighting." Everything was slow and odd-looking. In the climactic fight scene it looks like Uwe removed a few frames to speed it up but then forgot to actually speed up the film to make up for the missing frames. The result, instead of looking cool, looks like a live movie on a dial up connection, just skipping around. Stick your sword in the a-yer and wave like ya just don't ka-yer!

If you are a fan of movies and theater, or even just acting in general, then you will have little to watch in this movie. Michael Madsen doesn't so much phone it in as he does fulfill the basic requirements of his job description so he can get the cash and walk. Meat Loaf seems to be playing Hedonism Bot from Futurama and looks ridiculous, his entire scene was completely unnecessary. Billy Zane. Enough said. Ben Kingsley, well, everyone likes money. What can really be said about Udo Kier and Michael Pare that hasn't been said already? Kristianna Loken and Will Sanderson(he plays a nemesis-type) seem to be the only people who weren't clued in to the fact that no one else cared enough to actually work in this movie. They actually try to emote and be their characters. In any other movie, she would probably look like a block of wood, but in this movie she deserves an Oscar, comparatively. Will Sanderson looked a bit like he knew that somebody, somewhere might see him and release him from eternal bondage to Uwe Boll. This is his fourth movie with Boll and his fifth comes out in the winter(the Dungeon Siege movie). The odd thing is that it is his fourth Boll movie and he still gives it his all. Lastly, but most definitely not least, Michelle Rodriguez. The accent comes and goes as does your desire to see her in another movie ever. After seeing her in Lost, Resident Evil and this movie, I figured out what I don't like about her. Everything.

A moment of your time for a discussion of wigs. It is my belief that the actors all got together and had a wig meeting. Those that were wearing them for the movie all seemed to have them cocked at an angle that can only be described as jaunty. Billy Zane's (what purpose did he really serve?) wig was the worst. Although Meat Loaf and one the main characters were both pretty bad. Ben Kingsley is the only one who didn't get the memo or wasn't in on the joke, I guess, because his wig is straight and looks ok, for a wig.

In general, the more of a stink fest a movie is, the more I like it. I can't wait for the director's cut of Doom for chrissakes. There are a variety of ways to make a crappy movie. You can have a crappy movie like The Sword and the Sorceror or even the worst American movie ever, which I proudly own. You can even have a crappy movie like Pulp Fiction or Alexander. These people all tried to make the movie of their dreams. Uwe Boll, however, seems to be making the movies of a film freak's nightmares. They are so perfectly awful, I hope they never close that loophole. This is far more creative than having a hut in the Caribbean. I want these movies to get more and more expensive and have the largest cast of A-listers ever. I want Uwe Boll to issue a statement on his deathbed detailing how he just didn't care, but a man's gotta work. Uwe Boll is laying it all out there for us. He doesn't care about anything other than money. He is the only honest, producer/director related to Hollywood. Everybody else can try to claim they want to make cinema but then this movie comes out. Or this. Or this stinker. In summary, Uwe Boll has cut right to the heart of what's wrong with Hollywood and set up a studio.

PS This is blogger's spell checker suggestion for Bloorayne: Bladdernut. How is Bladdernut in the dictionary?

UPDATE: I know this is really late, but it is very important. This is the Onion's review of Bloodrayne. Although, I bet only my bro, dandrobium, and dontEATnachos will care.