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ImperatorHazel
Reviews
Underworld (2003)
It sucks. There's no other way to describe it, with or without pun.
The first thing people learn how to do in life is to suck. When a baby is born the mother then breast feeds it and it learns how to suck. The people who made this movie never mentally progressed beyond this stage because they still suck. This movie is not so much a movie as it is a test of endurance. You have to sit idly by while this movie destroys everything good and holy in this world.
"Underworld" is a horror/sci-fi/action/adventure/occult/Gothic/bad movie where an unexplained Romeo and Juliet type love takes place, although without the part where the audience cares. Apparently, there has been a blood feud between Vampires and Lycanthropes (spelled 'lycans', pronounced 'lichens') going on right under our noses. Selene, a piece of eye candy who hates lycans, is a death dealer who just can't keep her hands off two things; guns and Michael. Why exactly she can't keep her hands off the latter is not explained, but the former is because, of course, she also can't stop shooting Lycans. Kraven shows us he can't stop loving Selene but also that he can stop acting at will, if he even was to begin with. Viktor shows us that, wow, vampires drink human blood, and Lucien shows us that vampires can get pregnant, despite reproducing solely through biting.
Before I witnessed this unholy sacrilege, I took the time to read the novelization. I, thinking this movie would be a wonderful portrayal of aristocratic vampire and carnal lycanthropes, wanted to know everything about the movie before it actually came out. Before I was thoroughly disappointed by the movie, I found the novelization to be very entertaining. The fact that the novelization was better than the actual movie moves us into my next two points; the poor acting and low-grade cinematography.
"Willing suspension of disbelief" is a term used by actors and directors meaning the audience will believe and go along with what is presented on stage. Movies follow the same rules, but "Underwold" decided to be new and different and suck totally. From start to finish, the actors fail to emote and deliver their lines in a believable and appropriate manner. I cringe simply thinking about how horribly this movie sucked. As for cinematography, it rivaled "Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone" on the meter of how badly-placed and incoherent the scene transitions were. Not only is the audience left bewildered and confused, by they quickly become disgusted as they are fed more mediocre and unemotive dialogue. If these movie makers simply wanted to see how badly they could suck in a two-excruciating-hour movie, they achieved their goal in the most obnoxious way possible.
Visually, this movie is bearable. It would make any goth in makeup smile. The settings set the mood well, but the CG sucked. Of course, one could argue that this was due to lack of a budget (the acting proves as such. And did you see those dismembered limbs?) but give this thought a spin; George Romero, director of the Dead trilogy ("Night of The Living Dead", "Dawn of The Dead", and "Day of The Dead") had little to no budget for his movies. The zombies had no torn-flesh, decomposing makeup (which "Resident Evil" proudly sports), but you could still tell they were zombies. Sucky budget should be compensated by a good dose of creativity. But no, Underworld decided to suck once again and make the CG not only choppy and far-between, but the werewolves (Or lycans, while they're trying to be different) looked like rampaging horse/panther demons from any movie containing the words "Thing", "From" and "Beyond" in the title.
Sure, a horse/panther demon might be scary for a five-year-old boy with a complex, but that isn't the target audience, now is it? Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-lycanthrope. The vampires had their fair share of sucky creativity as well. Besides the frilly, synthetic-blood sucking, nancy-ass vampires who probably whined that they needed makeup to distract the audience from their terrible acting (also known as the main characters), most of the vampires looked like humans with those $5 fangs you find at a secondhand costume store glued to their incisors. Any vampire or lycanthrope purist would know that this movie is pure blasphemy. It defiles all of the traditional aspects of vampirism and lycanthropy that have been well-established throughout the years of horror movies. Vampires are evil beings. The thought of vampires realizing that mortals aren't just there for food sickens me to no end. And, somehow, lycanthropes are not as profoundly connected with the moon as everyone thought! Imagine that! Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but it is my belief that changes should be made for the better, not to further increase how much something sucks.
The most excruciating part in this movie is when, at the end, they decide to further advance the sucky plot by setting up the possible thought of yet another Underworld movie. A part of me wants to see this simply to know how far these people will go to ruin their reputation entirely.
In short, this movie sucked. There really is no other word that so best describes it. Bring your friends, bring your family. This movie sucked.
BloodRayne (2002)
Cleavage.
Cleavage n. (kleevij) 1. The act of splitting or cleaving. 2. The hollow between a woman's breasts, especially as revealed by a low neckline.
This is the only word which can accurately describe all that is Bloodrayne, from its excessive gore and blood to the amount of "money shots" given throughout the game. There is slicing and dicing as well as jiggling and giggling. This game epitomizes what a stereotypical heterosexual male wants: lots of guns, gore, grime and girls. Don't ask me why I picked it up, but I'm glad I did. Amid all the endless bloodshed, there's a plot to behold [though this is normally overlooked by most of the game's male players.]
Rayne is not your average vampire, no, no... She is a DHAMPIR; a melding of the best qualities of both vampire odsuckage, ownage, and sexage] and human [resistance to sunlight, resistance to water, sexage] parents. She is charged by the BRIMSTONE SOCIETY [some people in awful black hoods, very unstylish] to stop some Nazi bastards from destroying the world by reawakening Beliar [who is, apparently, the original devil. Or something.] Sexy vampiress killing nazi bastards; what more could you want?
Gameplay is so-so, once you get over the "What is up with this controller?!" syndrome [also instilled by games such as Resident Evil.] The L and R buttons are mostly used, A of course, both joysticks [C and main], and B if you don't want to die anytime soon. They keypad and Y button are also used for special abilities, which I will explain later.
You can control the camera angles to a certain extent, it doesn't swing around to give you a better view of the chandelier or the candles or whatever. It's a straightforward, playable-character-in-the-center look-up-and-down layout. The screen has two tables in it, a picture of Rayne with a blood-colored health bar which you can refill by drinking the blood of the Nazis. If you kill enough people, the other table fills up and you can enact bloodrage, which, and I quote, "increases dismemberment." The keypad changes the view to a slow-mo, a close-up, and then a bluish screen which shows where your objective is and where the Nazi bastards are. The only one which is really helpful is the last one, and once in a while the first. Who snipes when you can just go up and chop their heads off?
The graphics are also mediocre. It's no Resident Evil or Super Smash Brother Melee [nor a Wind Waker, either,] but you can tell what things are. The blood is fairly realistic as well. Terminal Reality uses the technique of Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers: moderately crappy graphics most of the time, but with movie quality scenes in between. The bodies of the characters are fairly rounded, but the faces look like Ocarina of Time [i.e. very flat and expressionless.] But the costumes look good, so I'll overlook it.
Cheats. Let me tell you. Oh my god cheats. Cheats everywhere. They give you a list of cheats. Arrange the words in the correct order [such as dontfartonoscar and triassasindontdie] and you will be able to beat the game without watching how much blood Rayne shoots out of her body [and shoots out of other people's bodies.] There are also little messages the creators left for us players. Don't we feel special. Anyway, if you're a lying, scheming, bastard cheater who can't play this game for the life of them [such as myself,] these cheats are very well-known and readily available to use. I suggest the two I mentioned if you really want to blaze through the game with blades and bullets. Alliteration aside, the cheats are useful and funny.
The most awesome part of Bloodrayne is the fact that when you kill someone/thing, the corpse stays there. It's an incredibly helpful marker in the mazelike levels presented in the second and third parts. See blood on the walls? Turn around, you've been there before. Some Nazis running around? Must be a new room! Speaking of mazelike levels, there are parts where you just aimlessly wander around, completely confused and bewildered as to where the f*** to go next. After a few minutes of exasperation, you'll know where to go. Or you can cheat.
Overall, it's a good game to get. It plays into that whole Nazi mysticism [wtf?] which also dominates Hellboy. There's also very sexy Germans and one very sexy vampiress running around. Much cleavage, as well. Again, what more could you ask?