(Movie Review)
This is yet another movie that has been flying under my radar because I've been in Japan. I've seen it in my video store for a while now. And they have been advertising it as a cult classic. And recently a few sequels have been coming out. So I thought I would check this out.
I'm not sure if the pleasure of fantasy films can be explained to the uninitiated, but if you're a fan like me you know that the real value of these films is not the action sequences, but the pleasure of being able to immense yourself in a new world. The more imaginative and intricate this world is, the more you enjoy exploring it.
That was what I was hoping for, and that was precisely what I did not get from this film, which was largely just a waste of 2 hours with flat boring characters walking across the screen.
The movie is about a war between vampires and werewolves. And, if you listen to the directors commentary, you know they're quite pleased with themselves for coming up with this idea. "There are a lot of vampire movies out there already, and there are a lot of werewolf movies, but nobody had thought of combining them. That's what's really exciting about this story." (Paraphrasing-but that's the general tone).
However the old proverb "less is more" comes to mind here. There have been many vampire movies in the past which manage to immerse you completely in the vampire mythology, or (more modern movies) create a secret world of vampire politics and competing factions.
You get hints of that in this movie, but because it splits its time between both the vampires and the werewolves you never really get fully involved with either.
Problems are evident right from the opening scene, when we get treated to an explosive, loud, drawn out gun-fight between the werewolves and the vampires, before we know who any of these characters are or have any reason to care about the outcome.
We see some interesting visual distinctions between the vampires (who live like Gothic royalty) and the werewolves (who live more stray dogs) but that's about as far as the development goes.
The special effects in this film are pretty decent. And after all the CGI films lately, it's nice to see a film using a lot of old fashioned stunt work. But perhaps more energy could have been directed into the storyline instead.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky The Contours of World Order & 50 Years of the United Nations
and Jeremy Scahill: ACORN Got Pennies Compared to War Contracting Firms- Their Crimes Pale in Comparison
and The Rachel Maddow Show: The Truth About the Lies About ACORN
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