Up Up, Down Down, Left Right, Left Right.

An Uwe Boll movie! And, surprise surprise, it's really bad!

The makeup effects were pretty cool, and there was a really badass shoot-out in the middle of the movie. That's about all the nice things I have to say.

The acting was mediocre to bad, the characters were about as cardboard-cutout as they come, I didn't give two-shits about who lived and died, blah-blah-blah. Yeah, it's the typical, run-of-the-mill teen-slasher that I hate so much. But the most annoying aspect?

Throughout the movie, clips of the rail-shooter that inspired the movie flash on screen. Why this is, I have come to three conclusions:

1. Uwe Boll was trying to be original
2. Sega would only allow an adaptation of the game if it included subliminal advertising for it
3. The budget didn't allow for any truly elaborate action scenes, so they stole 'em from the game.

My guess is that it's the latter, and for that I applaud Boll's creativity. Did I say creativity? I meant laziness...

Not much of a plot to speak of in this film sequel of a video game sequel, but that's not why I like it. The animators outdid themselves on this visual stunner, not only in terms of sheer beauty, but also in terms of choreography and "cinematography" that would be impossible to accomplish in the real world (i.e. "Physics? What's Physics?"). The only thing more beautiful than the animation? That would be the music, which both Final Fantasy fans and fans of fantastic film scores can appreciate. When I need my action packed eye-candy fix, I just pop this in the DVD player, set the sound to the Japanese language track, turn off the English subtitles*, and immerse myself into its aesthetic beauty.

*Note: I don't speak a single word of Japanese, and I understand even less of it. The dialouge and English dub are both so annoying that reading/hearing it would detract both from my enjoyment of the movie and an entire star and a half from my original rating.

This is the first of the infamous Uwe Boll's movies that I've had the "pleasure" to lay my eyes upon. It's not all Boll's fault, though. Oh no, there's plenty of blame to go around.

Let's start, if we may, with the script. The characters are all cookie-cutter archetypes without any sort of development, aside from the occasional monologue. A good portion of those characters are there simply to move the bare-bones and wholly unoriginal plot along, and that gets really annoying. On top of that, every single word of dialogue sounds like it's been lifted from a prepubescent emo girl's Hellsing fan-fiction. Who's to blame for that? Why, Guinevere Turner, one of the co-screenwriters of American Psycho, that's who! I don't know how much of her script was changed around by Boll for the end product, but I'm sure it wasn't tinkered with that much. Shame on you, Guin. Tsk, tsk, and tsk again.

Who else gave a poor contribution to this dreck? The cast. It's a surprisingly impressive lineup, which makes their performances all the more disappointing. There are only two actors who's performances actually impressed me: Geraldine Chaplin, who was a fortune teller in one scene. And Billy Zane, who played a vampire that was, in the end, not really all that important to the movie.

As for the rest of the cast? They just sucked (no pun intended). Sir Ben Kinsley is a brilliant actor (he's been knighted for Christ's sake!) but his performance as the movie's villain was probably the worst I've seen him do. He was bored, and I could tell. Coming form an actor of his caliber, I shouldn't be able to tell (he's been KNIGHTED for Christ's sake!). Kristina Loken, sexy though she may be, is a wooden actress. It may work for playing a robotic killing machine, but it does not work for playing a half-vampire, all slinky vixen killing machine. On top of her acting range that's on-par with Keanu Reeves', she "acted" with a very unconvincing British accent. Her co-star, the equally sexy and usually more talented Michelle Rodriguez, layed on a thicker, but equally unconvincing, accent. Hearing both ladies deliver their lines in this movie made me want to curb-stomp a baby. Add to that fun bunch: Michael Madsen, probably the most overrated actor of our generation. The only good performance I've seen him turn out was his iconic one in Reservoir Dogs. His performance in this as a Van Helsing-esque vampire slayer didn't change my mind.

And for the spoiled creme-brule on top, we come to Boll. He failed to get the best from his cast, and his ham-fisted directing left us with the god-awful fight scenes. They were all about the geysers of blood, and not enough about making the actual combat leading up to them convincing. Seriously, nobody swings a sword that slowly in a fight and lives to see the light of day!

Is there anything nice I have to say about this movie, some of you may ask? Well...the music was pretty good...and the cinematography, not counting the fight scenes, was really pretty. ...Oh, and Billy Zane and Geraldine Chapman, but I already mentioned them.

Other than that, it was awful. Really...really...awful...

I've only seen half of it, but I actually kinda like it so far. I'm going to wait until it's on SciFi Channel again, though. It's not impressing me enough to go out of my way to rent it.

I tried so very hard to like this movie, because everyone involved in it tried so hard to make it a good movie. Despite the effort, unfortunately, it wound up being an incredibly boring and pretentious little fantasy flick. And no, it doesn't suck just because Uwe Boll directed it.

What makes this film not really work is Doug Taylor's disjointed script. It was pretty obvious Taylor was striving for the lyrical, poetic language used in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the dialogue in this movie was laughably cheesy. Also, unlike Lord of the Rings, you never had a feeling of being immersed in another world. Rather, Taylor throws archetypes and cliches at us and hopes it somehow forms a plot. Guess what, Doug? It doesn't!

The cast that has the honor and privilege to fill the shoes of those archetypes is a mixed bag. Statham surprises by doing an exceptional job as the main character, and Matthew Lillard is fantastic as a slimy traitor to his king. Ron Pearlman, John Rhys-Davies, and Leelee Sobieski are solid in their supporting roles, as well.

Unfortunately, for every good performance in this movie, there's a bad one to counteract it. Burt Reynolds is good when cast in the correct movie, but he's the last person on my list of people to play a medieval king. His performance as such a character did little to change my mind. Equally as unimpressive was the equally miscast Ray Liotta. He was amazing in Narc, but he was stiff as a board in this movie! Compared to him, Keanu Reeves should have got an Oscar for his portrayal of Jonathan Harker in Dracula! As for Carlie Forlani and Kristina Loken, they did the best they could with what they were offered (thankfully, Loken didn't reprise her god-awful English accent that she used in Bloodrayne), but neither were given much. Loken was the leader of a pack of tree-hugging hippie feminists that only showed up in two scenes, and Forlani was nothing more than a reason for Statham's character to go after the villain.

On the plus side, it's a stunningly shot movie, and the music was beautiful. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to make this movie any good.

Yes, I know it's based on a video game.

Yes, I know it's a video game movie directed by Uwe Boll.

Yes, the trailer alone was tasteless and offensive.

Yes, I felt guilty when I laughed hysterically at the trailer and the YouTube bootleg of the opening scene.

Yes, I feel terrible for wanting to see it as badly as I do.

Any other questions?

The game looks good. The movie, on the other hand, looks like a Sin City rehash starring Marky-Mark.

I think I'll pass on the latter, or maybe wait to rent it.

One of many projects that Uwe Boll's releasing this year. The other two being Postal, which looks like a guilty pleasure if there ever was one, and Tunnel Rats, which looks surprisingly promising.

This, on the other hand, looks like his typical raping of video games. I think I'll pass on this one.