BloodRayne

Yet another awful movie based on a video game, director Uwe Boll's (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark) BloodRayne, set in a parody of early modern Europe, revolves around the efforts of a svelte, sword-wielding female warrior named Rayne (Kristanna Loken)—half-human and half-vampire—to track down her evil, bloodsucking father, who raped and killed her mother years before and is now out to establish the reign of the undead by collecting three talismans (the physical remnants of a destroyed vampire—an eye, a rib, and a heart) that will endow him with unimaginable power. Rayne teams up with three members of the Brimstone Society, and together they battle her malevolent parent and his many minions. The whole shebang is a sort of period female version of Blade, leavened with bits of Underworld and Resident Evil—indeed, the dark, murky look of the movie is depressingly familiar, as are the terrible acting and execrable direction. The saddest aspect of BloodRayne is that the heroine's father is played by Ben Kingsley, sneering his way through a part that makes Ming the Merciless seem like a masterpiece of character subtlety. Not recommended. [Note: Available in either unrated or R rated versions, DVD extras include audio commentary by director Uwe Boll, a 48-minute “Dinner with Uwe Boll” interview, a six-minute “making-of” featurette (on the film's CGI), storyboards, the complete BloodRayne 2 PC game (with online instruction manual), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a terrible film.] (F. Swietek)