I finally got to see BloodRayne this past Monday. I enjoyed the movie; it was fast-moving and kept me wide-eyed throughout, and Meat was just great as Leonid. I was aware that some reviews had not been good, but didn't want to learn too much of the story in advance and ruin it for myself so hadn't carefully read them. After I got home I did that, and thought "Wow, could I have been that wrong?" so I went back on Tuesday after work and saw it again :))

I enjoyed it again the second time. It's not that I don't agree with some of the criticisms that have been expressed - it's just that overall it was fine. It was a horror movie, after all - a video-game based vampire movie - and you don't go to such a movie expecting The Sound of Music. I don't understand complaints about the spraying blood - who wouldn't expect that, from the title alone? I expected the movie to deliver a little escape and diversion, and it did - and I thought it did that well.

I wish I knew more about how movies are made. The dialogue, with a few exceptions, was not very scintillating, and while some actors rose above this easily, others did not. Meat was one of those who did; he sounded completely natural in his role as a decadent, sexy vampire voluptuary - he played the part very well, and made his all-too-brief scene the most fun of the movie. Billy Zane was also excellent - he brought lots of life to his part, and was very funny, as well. Geraldine Chaplin was wonderful in her short little cameo. And I thought Kristanna Loken, who as the main character had to carry the movie, was really very good, and consistently so. But a couple of the other actors seemed hindered by the dialogue. Was it the director's responsibility to help them put more "oomph" into their lines?

In some cases, though, the "professional" reviewers were just off the mark. Conflicting comments about "not enough plot" and "too much confusing plot" make you wonder if some reviewers hadn't made up their minds about the movie before they set foot in the theater, so they wouldn't have to waste time paying attention. One guy (Rafe Telsch) clearly wasn't; he thought the movie took place in Germany instead of Romania. And he criticized the continuity of the scenes outside Leonid's castle, saying "it's nearing night when the characters get there but they kill the vampire with daylight and then ride off into the midday sun." Not true - when Vladimir and the others arrive, the leaves are brightly dappled with sunlight filtering down through the trees. Some reviewers love to be smug - John Anderson's review for Newsday finds fault with Katarin's line "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," noting with amusement that "... back in vampire-ridden, 18th century Romania, they could quote Michael Corleone." But apparently someone else may have said this line about twenty-five hundred years before Mario Puzo used it (I'm waiting on a library book to arrive from across town to settle this, lol).

So, in summary, I do recommend BloodRayne, but not if you're offended by gratuitous geysers of blood!

Videoeta.com estimates BloodRayne's DVD release for June 2006.

-Kathy