Gianna in Blood: The Last Vampire

     RSS

 

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Even when one adjusts expectations for an English-language adaptation of an anime adaptation of a manga, shot as a Michael Bay knockoff by a French video director, the often unwatchably dim "Blood: The Last Vampire" doesn't convey much of anything.

That's "dim" in many senses.

 

The supposed plot involves a beautiful half-human, half-vampire government agent hunting demons in Japan with her American schoolgirl sidekick during the Vietnam War. If you're going "huh?" already, just wait.

Vampires and demons hang out in sunlight and have no specified powers or limitations. There are long, imponderably shot, sped-up and edited martial-arts fights, some with a gorgeous gal in a sailor dress swinging a samurai sword at hordes of stunt performers.

The dialogue is of the "Everything according to plan?" and "The Council must remain anonymous" ilk. The sidekick is superfluous and largely reduced to screaming and whimpering throughout.

Director Chris Nahon ("Kiss of the Dragon") jumbles the usual batch of silly macho stereotypes (sunglasses at night, you know the type) and stock sequences with a visual palette ranging from barely visible black to impenetrable black. The exercise filches shamelessly from "300," "Star Wars," "The Matrix" and countless kung-fu movies.

"Blood's" only surprise is that the filmmakers landed Gianna (also known as Jeon Ji-hyun) for the lead.

The South Korean megastar, a compelling screen presence, proves a more-than-capable action heroine, despite the creative detritus around which she has to navigate.

 

"Blood: The Last Vampire" Movie Trailer

 

Receive Movie Reviews
Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

 

 

Blood: The Last Vampire MPAA rating: R (for strong bloody stylized violence).

Running time: 1:31.

Starring: Gianna (Saya); Allison Miller (Alice McKee); Liam Cunningham (Michael); JJ Feild (Luke).

Directed by Chris Nahon; written by Chris Chow;

Produced by Bill Kong and Abel Nahmias.

A Samuel Goldwyn Films release.

 

Recent Movie Reviews - Films in Theaters

The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Renner & Anthony Mackie in The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker

Vivid, assured and extremely suspenseful, director Kathryn Bigelow's latest (and strongest) film takes moviegoers by the collar and throws them headlong into one horrifying life-and-death situation after another. Jeremy Renner plays a soldier in Iraq running toward the explosives while everyone else is ducking and covering.

Time will tell if this politically neutral war movie is a classic, but it's certainly a formidable experience

 

Bruno
Sacha Baron Cohen & Gustaf Hammarsten in Bruno

Extraordinarily raunchy, occasionally funny, Bruno takes everything Borat did so well three years ago and pushes it further, swapping one primary target for another. But comic nerve has little to do with sheer excess. The fashionista at the center of Bruno" is a pretty tedious fellow ...

I Love You Beth Cooper
Hayden Panettiere & Paul Rust in I Love You Beth Cooper

Provides so few laughs, I nearly wandered out of the theater midway to go look for some somewhere. Columbus strains to set up sight gags. You may wince, but it's not a ha-ha wince. Both as written and acted, Denis quickly becomes a tedious motormouth, not helped by Columbus' uncertain pacing, with big, blobby pauses clogging up the plot machinery.

Public Enemies
Johnny Depp in Public Enemies

Johnny Depp stars as charismatic Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger, and Christian Bale plays G-man Melvin Purvis. The film is a fascinating bundle of contradictions -- authentic in a million details, deeply romanticized in others. Cool, calm and collected, this is more love story than gangster picture (Marion Cotillard plays Dillinger's lover), and it's more vivid around the edges than at its center. Yet a genuine filmmaking intelligence guides every scene

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Not bad, not good, "Ice Age 3" may be OK enough to do what it was engineered to do, i.e., baby-sit your kid for a while and rake in the dough. Lack of comic distinction and forgettable computer animation have always held back the "Ice Age" projects. "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" lays out one life-and-death scenario after another, dutifully.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Shia LaBeouf & Megan Fox in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The first "Transformers" was a headache, but I sort of enjoyed it. It was a Slurpee brain-freeze of a blockbuster. This sequel is more like listening to rocks in a clothes dryer for 2.5 hours. Nobody's looking for anything other than relentless, brainless action, but director Michael Bay offers nothing but visual and aural chaos.

Michelle Pfeiffer & Rupert Friend

Cheri
Michelle Pfeiffer & Rupert Friend in Cheri

Michelle Pfeiffer appears in her first substantial dramatic role since "White Oleander," and we are reminded of how much the world of film has lost by her recent absence.

Pfeiffer plays an aging prostitute nudged into a relationship with the 19-year-old wastrel son of a fellow courtesan (Kathy Bates).

 

My Sister's Keeper
Cameron Diaz & Abigail Breslin in My Sister's Keeper

The harder this cinematic assault weapon went at my tear ducts, the more duct tape I wrapped around them as a defensive measure. Anna (Abigail Breslin), a girl who was a test-tube baby conceived to provide bone marrow to her older sister (Sofia Vassilieva), who has leukemia, sues her parents (Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric) for "medical emancipation," and while you'd think inter-family legal action would stop all the lovey-dovey montages of everybody cherishing every minute together, think again.

Whatever Works
Larry David & Evan Rachel Wood in Whatever Works

On the heels of last year's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," the freshest Woody Allen film in more than a decade, "Whatever Works" (Allen's 40th feature as director) plays like a hoary old Broadway stage comedy yanked, reluctantly, into the present. Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") plays a New York City misanthrope whose worldview is tempered by a relationship with a much younger Southern runaway (Evan Rachel Wood)

Jack Black & Michael Cera

Year One
Jack Black & Michael Cera in Year One

Hit and miss doesn't begin to describe this frequently wince-worthy comedy. Jack Black and Michael Cera play outcast members of a Paleolithic tribal village whose wanderings bring them into contact with Cain and Abel and Abraham and Isaac and Sodom and Gomorrah. Harold Ramis directs, and while this won't join his list of essential comedies, some of the dumb jokes manage to elicit a laugh.

 

Food Inc. (3 Stars)
Eric Schlosser & Michael Pollan in Food Inc.

This eye-popping documentary from filmmaker Robert Kenner should win a few hearts and minds regarding what we put in our stomachs. But the film got virtually no cooperation from representatives of the dominant players in industrial food production, and as a result, "Food, Inc." is a rangy, well-articulated essay rather than a compelling point-counterpoint.

The Proposal (2 Stars)
Sandra Bullock & Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal

In this disposable romantic comedy, Ryan Reynolds plays the beleaguered Man Friday to a fearsomely mean book editor played by Sandra Bullock. The editor, a Canadian living in New York, has visa troubles and is threatened with deportation. She strong-arms the assistant into marrying her -- quickie divorce to follow -- under the suspicious eye of Immigration Services.

Moon (2 Stars)
Sam Rockwell, a solitary astronaut, and
only a computer voiced by Kevin Spacey in Moon

This film could alternatively be titled 2009: A Space Odyssey, as it is virtually impossible not to be reminded of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece between Kevin Spacey's soothing ministrations as a computer named Gerty and Sam Rockwell's efforts to cope as the lone occupant of a lunar outpost. Rockwell plays Sam, a technician working on a strip-mining operation on the moon.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Denzel Washington & John Travolta in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Denzel Washington's easygoing authority compensates for a lot in a sequel that fails to live up to the 1974 original, which starred Walter Matthau as a New York City transit cop locking horns with subway hijackers.

Director Tony Scott's modern version is slick, predictable and, thanks mainly to Washington's canny underplaying, fairly diverting. John Travolta plays the lead baddie.