BloodRayne, while absolutely not a stellar movie, wasn't bitten-by-ants bad. Maybe mosquito-in-the-middle-of-the-night-that-keeps-buzzing-your-ears bad, but not quite bitten-by-ants bad. Uwe Boll obviously sunk a lot of money into this production, as it has some top notch stars (Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane and Meat Loaf--the actor, not the food, although you couldn't really tell from the performance) and the sets and shots were not cheap. In fact, we got several flyover shots a la Lord of the Rings, but not as pretty (Romania =/= New Zealand for rugged beauty, although it did put in a commendable showing) and you can't rent a helicopter for pocket change. This movie had a lot of potential right from the get-go...

...but it just never got up and went. Kristanna Loken is the most solid actor in this film, and that's not right. Ben Kingsley looks constipated, Meat Loaf looks bored or preoccupied or both (rumor has it the scene with all the nubile naked chicks was filmed using real Romanian prostitutes because they were cheaper to hire than actresses...perhaps Mr. Loaf was preoccupied), and Mr. Madsen? Phoned in the performance. No wait, phoning in just doesn't describe how bad his acting was...I think he delivered his lines via pony express. I don't blame him though because the script was pretty dull; whenever the movie could tell you about the plot rather than show it to you, it did. With glee. And relish.

My Plot! Let me blather it to you!

Mr. Boll also needs to learn the difference between a lens with a deep focal plane and a lens with an extremely shallow focal plane or he needs to stop listening to his cinematographer's crazy ideas. If an actor leans slightly forward to deliver a line, his or her face should still be in focus. Not so much here, and that is NOT how you get artsy jiggy with the camera. Along those lines, I'm glad Mr. Boll was able to afford a helicopter for the aerial shots but that doesn't mean I want to see a whole travel montage of them. And what's with the horses' butts? Butts butts butts WHY??

All that said, we kinda enjoyed the movie after they found a better lens to shoot people with (about a half hour in). The acting was still meh and the plot blather (dear God the plot blather) was annoying but not a deal breaker. Even the stupid ending was predictably stupid in that "Ho Hum, cliche ending yawn" sort of way which did not prompt us to hurl blunt heavy objects at the screen. Would we see it again? Mmmmmaybe. Would we recommend it for watching? Mmmmmaybe. Will we be looking for BloodRayne II? We plead the fifth on that one.