Video Game Movie Review: Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance (and some thoughts on Uwe Boll)

Firstly, I don’t know if I have regular readers, but if I do, I’d like to apologize for the long pause since my previous post. It turns out making games is a time consuming process and I’ve been busy. I don’t think I have regular readers since most people who frequent this site are Nintendo fanboys who would die to defend the house of Mario from any negative remarks I may make. So, they probably don’t miss me. Anyway, luckily I’ve been able to tear myself away from the computer monitor for long enough to stare at my TV to watch Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance. If you’re like me, you will have two reactions to this:

1. You will be very disappointed to miss the theatrical run
2. You will be shocked to find out that it’s already released to video.

Fear not Big G readers! It went straight to video, so you didn’t miss it on the big screen. I happen to be a big movie buff with an unnatural zest for video game movies, so I think I shall start reviewing video game movies, especially ones that you may have missed out on. My rating scale will be the turd. 1 turd isn’t too terrible. Perhaps on par with a Hollywood blockbuster like Underworld. 10 turds is unbearably awful and incredibly painful to watch like Gigli or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 4: The Next Generation. If you want to lose the will to live, then try watching those movies. I dare you. I will rate them in various categories and assign a final turd rating, which is not an average.

So, firstly, I’d like to start this out by saying Uwe Boll is a terrible, terrible human being and an even worse film maker. Between cussing out Wired, beating up his critics, and making pile o’ crap films, it’s amazing he has time to troll the message boards reading all the hate on the web about him. I don’t like jumping on the Uwe sucks bandwagon, so let me continue by saying that I don’t hate Uwe Boll. He’s a terrible person, yes, but I like him. That's right! Your eyes don't deceive you! I like him. Why? Because he entertains me. I own Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead on DVD, and I saw all 3 in the theaters. I saw House of the Dead on opening night, and there were like 20 people in the theater and about 7 of them walked out before the film was done. I was laughing my ass off. I’m not laughing because the movie is intentionally funny. I’m rather laughing AT all the people who made the terrible, terrible film and how bad they are at their jobs and how ashamed they must feel that all their hard work went to produce such a stinker. (Except Uwe Boll who is constantly frustrated because we don't appreciate his genius.)

That being said, I’m the guy that keeps Uwe Boll in business. I’m the one that allows him to keep butchering our favorite video games. You may ask how I sleep at night. Well, thanks for asking, but actually quite poorly. I have insomnia, but I’m still okay with giving Uwe Boll money because he entertains me. I just don’t enjoy laughing at his appalling films. I also enjoy laughing at his crazy hijinks like his immense frustration with why his target audience hates him. If you are reading this Uwe, take some notes. Get out a magic marker and write this down. "Du saugst!" For those who spreche nicht gut Deutsch, that means "you suck". Your movies are terrible. You take much loved video game franchises and take big fat German dumps on them. Now, in Uwe’s defense, he always says that people shouldn’t say he’s a terrible film maker from his video game adaptations alone. They should see his other films. Well, I plan on seeing his other films, so I can make fun of them also, but I haven’t had a chance to see them just yet. Unfortunately, there are worthwhile films that I’d like to see, and it’s beyond comprehension that his other films could be any good because his video game adaptations are so bad. Let’s take the first Bloodrayne as an example.

The Bloodrayne video game was about a half vampire chick fighting Nazis all the while making cheesy wisecracks that are befitting of any action movie hero. Pure entertainment, right? Not much to screw up, right? WRONG! Uwe Boll took a fat crap on a sheet of paper and had his crack team of writers use that as source material for the first film. Bloodrayne instead of a confident hero, who always has the right one liner for the occasion, was transformed into a whining emo cry baby in the middle ages fighting who knows what because the plot was so damn stupid.

Luckily, Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance is not as bad as the first. Unfortunately, that’s not saying much because the first one was a steaming pile of dog doo. (I’ll try and get around to reviewing it later for those of you who were fortunate enough to miss it). According the interview on the DVD with the brilliant mind behind Bloodrayne 2, Uwe, there 100 years in between the first and the second movie, in which Bloodrayne immigrates to America through New York, and then settles in the Wild West. So, that’s where the movie begins. Other than Uwe and a character named Rayne, there are no real similarities between the first and the second movie. Since the first one was so terrible, that’s probably a good thing. Kristanna Loken is a terrible actress and in my opinion, not very attractive. If I’m going to watch a terrible film with terrible acting, I might as well be looking at someone pleasing to the eye. Natassia Malthe fills the roll much better in that regard. The dark emo and gothic story beats from the previous movie are pretty much gone.

Instead, it seems Billy the Kid was really a vampire, and it’s up to Rayne to stop him. Vampires versus cowboys sounds pretty good, right? Unfortunately, that’s where the wheels come off the wagon. There is very little fighting and a whole lot of boring nothing. It’s difficult for me to remember how they filled up 90 minutes because almost nothing exciting or of interest happened. Rayne’s character was practically mute, which may have been a good thing depending on Natassia’s acting ability, but I can’t judge her as an actress from this stinker since she had such piss poor direction and so few lines. In the crew interview, the writers stated that Uwe said Westerns are about the set up and not the actual action. In this movie, that was pretty much what they did. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exciting rising action like in a properly filmed western. It was stuff that should have hit the cutting room floor. Any editor worth his/her salt would have cut these snooze fest down to 5 minutes – the ending credits.

Although the movie was largely forgettable, the writing was so poor, it amused me. Here are some highlights. Billy the Kid describing his brilliant plan to create an army of vampires to overthrow the world says, “Witness the greatest story ever told”. Rayne after someone tells her that she can’t fight all the vampire cowboys because she’s a woman follows with “Your fly is unzipped.” And finally, one of the last lines in the film that had no relation to anything that I could figure out: “Life is like a penis. When it's hard, you get screwed. When it's soft, you can't beat it.”

So, here’s the final rating: (these are out of 10 turds where 0 is acceptable 10 is unbearably terrible)

Production values: 8.0 – Unlike most Westerns, it didn’t take place in a desert. There was plenty of green grass and trees. That’s probably because they were using the set from something else. In the credits, it said that they had the writers pretty much write the story on the set because they had such a short production time.

Story: 7.0 – Vampires in the west could be cool…. Maybe if Uwe Boll weren’t involved. Unfortunately, it proved to be very boring.

Action: 8.5 – There were a few guns. And a few blades. Maybe I fell asleep during the film because I just finished watching it and I can’t remember how they filled up 90 minutes with so little action.

Faithfulness to the video game source: 9.5 – There’s a character named Rayne and a Brimstone society. That’s about it. Rayne who although didn’t have much personality in the game, is completely different.

Laughs: 5.0 – There are some bad movies that are just funny. Blade 2 cracked me up from start to finish. Bloodrayne 2 just had a few great lines, most of which I’ve repeated in this review.

Total turds: 8.5 – Not the worst Uwe Boll film by any means, but is perhaps the most boring. Few laughs and very little action makes this one worth skipping.

PS. Uwe, if you are reading this, please feel free to post a comment about how brilliant you are and how I'm an idiot and a jerk for reviewing your movie. Also, please dicuss how I'm a coward and you could beat me up. Also please include all sorts of spelling and grammatical mistakes similar to your e-mails to wired, so I can laugh at you.