This is going to
be a strange one. Vampire Academy is based on a series of
books written by Richelle Mead, another saga of supernatural
teenagers and all their lovely drama. I've never read the books so I
honestly can't say what their quality is, but each new book usually
tops the best seller list so there has to be something there of
interest.
What's odd is the
creative team behind this one, the Waters Brothers Mark and Daniel.
Mark directed it, which is a good pick as his resume has a healthy
history of mixing teens and the supernatural. Mean Girls, Freaky
Friday, Just Like Heaven, and the Spiderwick Chronicles...
I'd say the man knows his stuff when it comes to the Young Adult
demographic.
Daniel on the
other hand... whoa. I'm not sure you could find a writer with a more
erratic career than he has. He
wrote the excellent Heathers,
one of the most fun movies ever in Demolition
Man,
the BIZARRE Batman
Returns,
the Godawful Adventures
of Ford Fairlane,
and then The Room
of the 1990s in Hudson
Hawk.
Some varying
styles to say the least. This either is going to be a very witty and
clever film or just a jaw droppingly terrible one. Sink your fangs
into your favourite Dhampir and let's watch A Ghoul Versus
Vampire Academy!
The film begins
with WAY too many studio credits for a film this small, set to
M.I.A.'s “Bad Girls”. We see a station wagon driving down
a road at night, containing the Dragomir family consisting of Mr. and
Mrs. Dragomir, their teenage children Andre and Lissa, and Lissa's
best friend Rose Hathaway. We find they're actually listening to “Bad
Girls” on the radio, which is kind of hard to believe the prim
and proper British parents would be rocking out to this.
Right off the bat
I have to give the film points for establishing everyone's names and
identities immediately in might actually be a world record. The
parents don't get names besides Mr. and Mrs. Dragomir, but they're
adults in a fantasy story so who cares about them? Mr.
Dragomir says “I think the tune is rahther catchy” in his posh
British accent, going to crank it up when a car from the oncoming
lane smashes into them head on.
Rose wakes up in
bed gasping. Was that just a dream then? In the next room she can
hear Lissa crying out, going to wake her up. Apparently they were
both having the same dream about the accident because Lissa talks
about how weird it is having Rose in her head. Rose quips that by now
Lissa should know that weird doesn't even begin to cover their lives,
and holy crap they're getting the exposition out of the way in record
time!
Rose starts to
chastise her for not dreaming about naked guys when she notices Lissa
has a poster of American president Jimmy Carter on her wall. Lissa
explains it's her attempt to blend into “Oregano” society, Rose
correcting her that they're in “Oregon”. Goddamn movie, slow
down! I can't keep up with these character profiles disguised as
teenage girl dialogue!
“So
do you want to go get something to eat? I think we should eat
Chinese, which is my favourite food ever since I was 9 years old and
my powers first manifested themselves, giving me super strength and
agility!”
“No,
I think I'd prefer Italian. As long as we don't order anything with
garlic in it, as you know that's my biggest weakness and can cause my
powers to fail at a moment when they're the most needed!”
Lissa says she's
still adjusting, because after all it's been less than a year since
they ran away from the academy and two years since the crash. NO ONE
TALKS THIS WAY MOVIE. Lissa wonders if their being on the run is even
worth it since she doubts the academy even remembers them. Rose
notices Lissa is looking faint so she offers her bare neck to her.
Lissa grows fangs and digs in. Now THAT'S a good friend, it's hard to
find one that'll let you drink their booze let alone their freaking
blood.
Rose notices
someone outside watching them. Lissa asks if it's strigoi, but Rose
says it's the guardians instead. They leave their apartment through
the alley, finding two men in black suits outside looking around.
Rose turns a motorcycle into a giant Molotov cocktail to distract
them and kicks their asses with her ninja skills. Hmm, nice and
practical!
The young women
are about to jack a car and head to Canada when a man in a trench
coat approaches them, addressing Princess Vasilisa Dragomir. He
introduces himself as Dimitri Belikov, here to return her to St.
Vladimir's Academy. Rose runs at him, but he hits her with the
world's WORST slow motion palm strike that sends her flying into the
air. I'm
guessing the film's thirty million dollar budget didn't go towards
the special effects.
She's in the air
so long Dimitri is able to run underneath her and catch her body.
Rose figures this is a good time as any to do some more exposition,
so she starts narrating. Lissa is a royal member of the ancient race
called the Moroi. They don't do any of the traditional vampire
things, nor do they sparkle. Taking a shot at Twilight,
eh movie? That's kind of biting the hand that feeds you, isn't it? The Moroi don't
live forever either, though they do need to drink blood. Rose is a
dhampir, which is a half human half Moroi.
The dhampir,
better known as the guardians, are the protectors of the Moroi.
Rose's narration takes place over Dimitri and his fellow guardians
driving her and Lissa to Montana. Rose comes out of her narration to
complain to Dimitri about being handcuffed to the car, and not even
six minutes into the movie I pretty much hate her already. Why?
Everything she says is a “witty” one liner. EVERYTHING.
Dimitri pulls up
the hair on the back of the neck to show off his tattoos for no good
reason other than giving Rose the chance to tell us more about the
world. His tattoos are “molnija marks”, indicating he's killed
six strigoi which apparently is a big deal. Her and Lissa share a
telepathic joke much to Dimitri's disdain.
They arrive at a
gated off compound, Dimitri talking into an earpiece to open the
gate. He gets no answer, only crackling static. That'd be a funny
twist if humans have taken over the compound and we get a reverse
horror movie here. Suddenly a body
drops onto the car, and men start smashing the car windows and
grabbing everyone. The attackers are some kind of vampire zombies
because vampire werewolves would be just plain stupid.
The battle leads
into the woods, leaving Rose and Lissa alone. Rose breaks her
handcuffs and goes outside to investigate where everyone went. A
strigoi, whom these freaks obviously are, appears and starts
advancing on her. Rose breaks character and suddenly turns into a
terrified damsel in distress, just standing there too scared too
move. The guardians return from the woods and kill the invaders.
Rose starts narrating again that those beings were the strigoi, the
bad vampires.
The strigoi can
only be killed by a silver stake and they're the worst of the worst.
We get a flashback of a young Rose in a classroom watching a video of
a strigoi dancing to what was likely dubstep. Dimitri takes them
inside the gates, Rose saying goodbye to her life of Facebook and
iPhone 5s. Wow that is some terrible dialogue. Also, who was she
Facebooking? Weren't they on the run and trying to avoid contact with
everyone?
We see the academy
is basically Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as Moroi and
dhampir comes from all over the world to get their education. Along
with general knowledge of the world, dhampir learn how to kill while
Moroi learn how to use magic based off the four elements. Although I give
this movie another point for showing they learn stuff like math and
science. That always bugged the hell out of me you never see Harry
Potter taking a math or english lesson, those kids had to be pretty
freaking dumb by the time they graduated!
“Quick
Hermione, we need to solve this number puzzle so we can stop
Voldemort's latest plan! What's two plus two?!”
“Uhhhhhhh...”
Rose explains
there are twelve royal families of the Moroi, that alternate leaders
in the vampire world. The current is Queen Tatiana, but Lissa is “in
the mix” to replace her. As they enter the school grounds, Rose
complains about being back at “Vampire Academy”. Lissa takes
offense to this, because Rose knows how she feels about the “v
word”.
They're taken to
meet with Headmistress Kirova and OH GOOD GOD it's Olga Kurylenko. I
didn't think it was possible, but she's gotten worse as an actress.
As she ponders a punishment for the two girls, Gabriel Byrne arrives
to save us from her TERRIBLE line reading. He is Prince Victor
Dashkov, the head of one of the twelve royal families. Gee, I wonder
if the only big name in this movie who has a history of playing bad
guys is going to turn out to be the bad guy? Rose comments on
his condition, as he looks like his skin is rotting off. He says his
Sandovsky's Syndrome has gotten much worse, and oddly Rose doesn't
narrate what the hell that means. Maybe her inner voice is exhausted
from earlier.
Victor helpfully
tells us he's the provost of the school and best friend of Lissa's
father as he asks Olga to have sympathy on the girls. I wonder if
exposition is a class at the academy or if it's a vampire thing in
general? Olga drones on and
on, Rose not listening like the rest of us as she looks around the
room. Her eyes rest on a bookshelf full of staff records, the camera
pointing out one has the name Karp on it. This prompts Rose to ask
where Ms. Karp is, Olga ominously informing her that she "no
longer is part of institution”.
Rose asks why this
is and Olga sets acting back at least a decade with her jilted
response. I don't know who I admire more, Olga for just not giving a
fuck about trying to act or the director for saying “yeah whatever,
when do I get my check?” Victor starts talking about how his
condition has taken the Dashkov family out of contention, and that
Lissa is a possible successor to the throne.
Which we already
knew. We're only twelve minutes in this thing, huh? I want to talk
about this entire scene for a second. It really doesn't make a lot of
sense, I get the impression they took a much bigger conversation and
hacked it up to get the important stuff going without the
transitional dialogue that got us there. Either that, or every
character has severe ADHD.
Speaking of ADHD,
Olga then transforms into an entirely different character as she
tries to molest Rose right in front of everyone. Uh... Dimitri breaks
this incredibly awkward moment by telling Olga that Rose and Lissa
have “the bond”.
Olga says that's
impossible but Dimitri says he's confirmed it. Dimitri stands up for
Rose, saying she should continue to be Lissa's guardian because the
number of female guardians have gotten so low. And then I have no
idea what's going on next, Lissa starts apologizing to Olga as the
camera focuses SUPER CLOSE on her face while her voice gets all
echoy. I think she's using the Jedi mind trick or Olga, because Olga
then says Rose can stay at the academy BUT no parties, no
socializing, and no fun. Great, so now Olga's the crusty old dean
from every frat house movie ever.
As Rose and Lissa
go to leave, Olga gives Rose a telegram from her mother. Rose is more
interested in narrating about how Lissa just used “compulsion” to
save her ass. This gives way to another flashback as Rose helps Lissa
practice her magic when they were originally at the academy. Lissa
hasn't declared which element she's going to study, which I guess is
a really big deal to her people. Rose gets excited when Lissa's magic
works, going to high five her. Lissa leaves her hanging because Rose
should know how she feels about high fives. Oh my God, is this going
to be her “thing”?
They're
interrupted by Ms. Karp, who is a fucking weirdo to say the least.
She says it's fine Lissa hasn't declared a magic yet, because she
never did and look how she turned out! As Karp walks
away, both women talk about how much they like her. Rose says what
she likes best about her is that she's not strange or creepy at all,
which is supposed to be sarcasm but I don't think the actress quite
understood that in the script and read it straight. A crow flies by
them into a statue, gravely hurting itself. Lissa uses her powers to
heal it, as Rose notices Karp ANGRILY watching them from a window.
Lissa passes out from the effort of using her powers as the flashback
ends.
Lissa goes to get
a drink of water from a fountain as the prerequisite Popular Kids use
their powers to make the water blast her in the face. They all laugh
like this is hilarious, which it was... in kindergarten One of them,
Aaron, breaks away from the group to talk to her. He's Lissa's
ex-boyfriend, apologizing for the actions of his current girlfriend
Mia. He says Mia is jealous but deep down she's really sweet. Mia illustrates
this by walking up to Lissa and saying “Back off BITCH, he's mine
now!” Lissa quips it must be WAY deep down. WHOO, comedy!
Meanwhile Rose is
catching up with her old friends at a training session, including her
good friend Mason. She starts bragging about how awesome she is, and
he kicks her ass in like one second. Mason is the GREATEST HERO IN
THE HISTORY OF EVER! Rose's eyes suddenly turn shiny and she has a
POV vision of entering a church. Ah, she's seeing what Lissa is doing
thanks to their bond.
Some dark haired
asshole walks in and ridicules Lissa for... I don't know, something.
Conversations in this movie don't really flow at all. But I'm sure
they'll find a way to tell us exactly what's going on in the next few
sentences. Rose saves the day as she starts talking to herself about
how the boy is Christian Ozera, whose folks turned themselves into
strigoi.
Christian and
Lissa drone on, as Christian also changes characters mid-scene into a
much nicer guy. The only thing important in this scene is Lissa
mentions strigoi can't enter holy ground, which will probably be
useful later on. As Lissa tries her best to put the audience to
sleep, Christian is staring at her straight creeper style. He tells
her he has a theory on what she did for blood involving her and
Rose while they were on the run. Lissa asks him to not share his
theory with anyone else.
Later that night
Rose meets with Dimitri for training in a scene set to Haim's “The
Wire”, so that's ANOTHER point I have to give this movie for
doing something right. Rose asks if they can go easy since she's worn
down from the previous training session, Dimitri responding by
slamming her hard to the mats. Hmm, at this point it's a toss up who
I love more: Mason or Dimitri. I gotta go Mason because so far he's
the only actor in this movie with any charisma whatsoever.
Our next scene has
Rose and Lissa heading to the “cafeteria”, which Rose ACTUALLY
NARRATES as “it's time for the cafeteria scene”. Wow. Rose asks if
you've ever wondered what happened to the one friend of yours had
that was obsessed with vampire books and shows? Yeah, she grew out of
it and got into goddamn Doctor Who. Oh wait, Rose wasn't
talking to me was she? Or was she? WHO EXACTLY IS SHE NARRATING TO?
We are introduced
to the human feeder program, where human civilians sign up to give
Moroi their blood in exchange for the thrill of a vampire feeding off
them. This was an AWESOME IDEA... when Buffy
the Vampire Slayer did it fourteen
years ago. Rose introduces us
to the human feeder program, where human civilians systematically
giving their blood to the Moroi. Rose hates this, but Lissa reminds
her all humans are there of their own free will. The humans sign a
one year maximum contract and get their memories compulsed when it's
up.
This movie does
not give one single IOTA about establishing its world whatsoever.
What is the Moroi's relation to the outer world? Does the entire
human race know about them? If not, how do the feeder humans know
about them? It's not like the academy can put out a Craigslist post
for vampire groupies because they have no internet. How come Lissa
has more powers than just elemental ones? Why is not declaring your
magic specialty such a big deal? How come Moroi bites don't leave
marks?
For that matter,
what do the Moroi do once they're out of school? Why do they have sex
with humans? Does that mean the Moroi blend into the human world or
do they just stay sequestered in their little societies? Rose says
there's Moroi and dhampirs all over the world, that's a lot of
supernatural beings to stay hidden. Oh, the dhampir! Why are there so
few female guardians left in the world? Why do the dhampir serve the
Moroi so diligently? Wouldn't they resent being raised to be
bodyguards and nothing else?
What is hell is
Sandovsky's syndrome? What does it do? Is it related to the strigoi
at all? What's the deal with the strigoi? What's their motivation or
are they just mindless beings that feed on Moroi? Why did Christian's
parents turn themselves into strigoi? How did they do it? How come a
strigoi can't enter holy ground when none of the other vampire rules
apply to them?
We see a clinic
full of human freaks getting fed on by vampires. Lissa sees one of
her old feeder friends Norrine, sitting next to her and immediately
chomping down on her arm. Come on movie! They JUST said the humans
can only be there a year, and Lissa's been gone for over a year so
how can that woman still be there? Unless they meant a TOTAL of a
year and Good God why am I trying to make sense of this? Rose runs into
Victor at the clinic and chats with him, Victor asking her to keep an
eye on his daughter Natalie, who is introduced as the Clumsy Awkward
Nerd Girl.
Lissa catches up
with Rose after she's done feeding, telling her what Norrine's been
up to. She mentions she writes Twilight fan fiction, Rose
asking if Lissa has read any. Lissa replies “oh God no” with
utter disgust in her voice, making this the second shot the movie's
taken at Twilight. Which is fine, but they really should have
made sure their movie wasn't worse before they did that. I wonder if
all this Twilight bashing was in the book, as it was published
in 2007 when Twilight wasn't yet the “pop culture
phenomenon” it'd go on to become.
Natalie walks up
to Rose and Lissa to say hi, and we find out not only is she the
Clumsy Awkward Nerd Girl, she's ALSO the Talks A Million Miles A
Second Girl. The three young
women go to... church? Eh? I don't recall reading about the Moroi in
the Bible. Rose makes googly eyes at Jesse, the Hottest Boy in the
School. I think I'm going to turn off the Cliche Counter off for
awhile, I don't want it exploding like the last one did. Natalie has
a crush on Jesse's best friend Ray, who mocks her nonstop but of
course that doesn't phase her.
Rose flirts with
Jesse as the bells chime church is about to begin. Mason talks to
Rose after Jesse leaves, and this sure as hell better be the
beginning of a love triangle because I'm lost and confused without
one! A young adult vampire story without a love triangle is like a
day without the sun or a Michael Bay movie without explosions. It's
just not natural.
At church they
listen to a sermon about St. Vladimir trying to follow God's path
despite his powers. This is just flat out weird. By St. Vladimir do
they mean Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for Dracula? Or
is this something else?
The preacher says
Vladimir was helped by the bond he had with his guardian,
shadow-kissed Anna. This causes Rose to have a flashback of Ms. Karp
calling her shadow-kissed as well. An explosion outside the church
interrupts the sermon, everyone running out in the hallway to see the
memorial to Lissa's family desecrated with the words “Leave or
Die” written on it.
The next day Rose
and Jesse meet up in secret to make out. He keeps interrupting her to
ask about things like iPhones and hashtags, and BLOODY HELL this
movie is going to be dated in a few years. Jesse tries to bite her as
it makes sex better, but Rose says he's never let a guy degrade her
like that. This causes him to deduce Lissa was biting her for blood
while they were on the run. Dimitri arrives to cockblock Jesse and
end this stupid scene.
Rose has another
flash of Lissa-Vision, as the princess finds a dead fox nailed above
her door. The guardians search the area but can find no evidence of
who did it. Rose thanks Dimitri for not ratting hero out to Rose, as
we see they both are starting to have feelings for each other. Ooh...
upping the ante on a love triangle with a love quadrilateral! This
movie IS original!
Rose, Lissa, and
Natalie all attend a class where Mia intentionally lets the professor
see a note she's passing. He reads it out loud because this is
elementary school apparently, reading how Lissa killed the fox on
purpose to distract everyone from learning she was using Rose as a
personal feedback. This causes the entire class to murmur to each
other.
The professor says Dhampir-Moroi mastication is a very serious allegation. Damn that's a big word for this movie that I actually had to look up the definition to. It's a fancy word for "chewing", not biting like Lissa was doing to Rose but just because I have time to look up words doesn't mean the writers of this movie did! Ray pipes up, saying the teacher left out the best part of the note where he and Jesse had a three-way with the “dhamp-tramp” Rose. Ray's clothes suddenly burst into the WORST CGI flames in the history of recorded cinema.
The professor
orders Christian to stop it, Ray's clothes extinguishing themselves
without even a single mark on them. The professor orders Christian to
the office, where hopefully he gets detention and we end up with a
Vampire Breakfast Club because at least that'd be mildly interesting.
After class Lissa
gets mad at Rose for letting Jesse uncover their secret and storms
off. Mason gets in on the storming off action himself after
confronting Rose about Jesse. Rose uses her Lissa-Vision, which is
what she actually calls it, to see where Lissa went. She finds her in
the church yelling at Christian, mad at him for setting Ray on fire
despite the fact she seemed a bit flattered when he did it in class.
Christian points
out Ray at no burn marks, then starts ranting about how they need to
start using their magic to fight the strigoi. So does this mean the
strigoi are organized and trying to overthrow the Moroi? I got the
impression they were just random mindless creatures, but Christian
makes it sound like they're in a huge war against them. Lissa reminds
him this is forbidden.
Queen Tatiana
arrives for a school assembly, and have you noticed how pretty much
every scene in this movie just kind of...ends? There's almost no
attempt to link them or have them flow in a cohesive manner. Queen
Tatiana is dressed in a cheap costume they likely stole from a local
high school's production of the Wizard of Oz, which is also
apparently where the “actress” is from too. Wait,
hold on a minute. Is that... JOELY RICHARDSON?!?
Ohhh, that's sad.
She is a FANTASTIC actor, but you'd never guess that from her
performance here. I'm thinking after a few days of seeing what the
movie was like and realizing her contract was legally binding, she
went into FULL ON “I don't give a single fuck” overdrive mode.
Whereas Jeremy Irons struck back at the filmmakers in Dungeons And
Dragons by giving the greatest over the top performance of ALL
TIME, Richardson's is a borderline suicide note.
I CANNOT emphasize
how much this scene feels like a high school play. Tatiana calls up
Lissa in front of everyone where she berates her for all the crap
she's pulled lately, because how dare she get a fox nailed above her
door. After the assembly Rose and Natalie talk about how Tatiana
crossed the line, and here's a sample of Rose's “wit”:
Natalie: After all
that Lissa has been through, to be shamed by our queen bee?
Rose: Don't you mean queen bee-atch?
They head to
Lissa's room, which they find empty with “If You Stay Bewhere”
painted in blood. I don't know why, but I find it endearing they
spelled “beware” wrong. Rose has Natalie LICK THE BLOOD on the
wall so she can tell where it came from. Good God, first we have the
angel in the Prophecy licking blood and now this? Has no one
ever heard of a forensics team?
All
Natalie can tell is the blood is from more than one person, and I
really hope she goes to get an AIDS test after this. Lissa arrives,
concluding Mia must be behind all of this. Rose says they should be
focusing on finding Ms. Karp instead because... I don't know. There's
this horribly undefined subplot about how Rose and Lissa can't
remember why exactly they left the academy but it's like they keep
forgetting about it every few scenes. Rose leaves, bumping into Christian on the
way out. He was coming to make sure Lissa is okay, but Rose tells him
to stay away from her. He tells her Lissa likes him, and Rose replies
with this line:
“Lissa used to
like Hot Topic too, and then she turned twelve”.
Ahhh, there it is.
This line made me curious enough about the books, so I actually
downloaded the first book to see how loyal the movie was being to it.
The book has ZERO references to Twilight
or Hot Topic, which leads me to believe Daniel Waters wrote this
entire movie as a middle finger to the entire genre. I mean the guy
is in his fifties now, this entire supernatural teen genre has to be
such nonsense to him. I could be totally wrong, after all this is the
guy who wrote Hudson Hawk
so I could be giving him WAY too much credit, but there is definitely
a tone to this movie that makes me feel I'm right. Also,
making fun of Hot Topic customers is MY gig Vampire Academy, OKAY?
Christian says he was only being concerned, Rose saying there's a fine line between concerned and stalker. Jesus Christ, what did he DO? It was clearly established Christian was going to the church long before Lissa was, if anything she's stalking HIM. Rose tells Christian to go away because it's what Lissa wants. Nice, 37 minutes into the movie and I DESPISE our “heroine” now. Well done movie!
He started off a
little rough, but Christian has been a nice guy who has been helping
Lissa through the bad time she's had since returning to the academy,
as well as defending the honour of her AND Rose. Rose just comes off
as a complete bitchy sociopath here.
The next morning
Rose FINALLY reads the telegram Olga gave her after a couple of
scenes teasing her opening it. Yeah, it's only been a few days why
not? She meets Dimitri outside for more training and some monotonous
line reading on his part, during which we learn Rose's mother is one
of the most badass guardians in the world. Dimitri asks what the
telegram said, and this ought to be good after all that build up!
“Glad you're
alive. What you did was inexcusable. Mom.” Oh. Huh.
They talk for what
seems to be forever, the only worthwhile information that Rose knows
nothing of her Moroi father. Rose goes back inside the school, where
she runs into Mia. Rose tells her the world beware doesn't have an
“h” in it, Mia furrowing her brow at her like “WTF are you
talking about?” Rose makes a note of this as she meets up with
Natalie, who tells her Mia and Aaron are going on a field trip to a
hemoglobin factory later that day.
WHAT?!
The vampires take field trips? Does this actually mean the human
world knows about their existence? Or do they just pretend they're a
normal school? If so, how do they deal with state inspection drills?
Also, what the hell is a hemoglobin factory? Is that a human thing or
a Moroi thing? I googled it to no avail, so it must be a Moroi thing.
Also, I am completely bored to tears by this movie so am trying to
grab onto anything to stay interested.
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