All Rise...

Judge David Johnson is flummoxed how you can make vampires, Nazis, and cleavage so incredibly boring.

The Charge

Only the dead survive.

Opening Statement

Uwe Boll has another treat for you and by "treat" I of course mean "Lugz boot to the testicles."

Facts of the Case

It's 1943 and the Nazis are looking for ways to make Hitler immortal. They turn toward vampire research and aided by a mad scientist (Clint Howard, Apollo 13) a sadistic Nazi hatchet man (Michael Paré, Eddie and the Cruisers) stumbles upon Rayne (Natassia Malthe, Elektra), human-vamp hybrid who's taken to hacking Nazis apart with her swords and championing women's rights by throttling would-be rapists and engaging in gratuitous slow-motion naked lesbian trysts.

The Evidence

I'm on record defending Uwe Boll's original Bloodrayne. You can look it up. I argued that if Boll's name wasn't attached to it, most people would probably chalk the film up as a trashy, gory B-movie guilty pleasure.

Now, having endured this clot of a follow-up, I'd like to formally retract my goodwill. Bloodrayne: The Third Reich is thoroughly rotten, a miserable affair that manages to make the concept of a hot vampire huntress with cleavage up to her chin killing Nazis lethally boring.

How exactly do you screw that up? Boll found a way, turning in a talky picture that eschews sustained action for overlong dialogue between Clint Howard and Michael Paré.

In between these jumbo expository exchanges—delivered with line readings that would make an adult film star laugh derisively—you have smatterings of action and sleaze. The former is disappointing: brief, poorly choreographed and light on the gore. The latter is a transparent attempt to jolt the viewer awake, as none of the love scenes make any sense. Rayne gets it on with another girl in a brothel because a) I guess vampires are bisexual sex addicts, and b) Boll was desperate to fill out his pathetic 70-minute runtime. More ridiculous is the impromptu intercourse Rayne and her male associate partake of while riding in a truck on their way to a Nazi death camp.

There's plenty more stupidity to delve into, but I'll spare you. All that needs to be understood is this: the action is terrible, the acting is laughable, the T&A is too ridiculous to titillate and Rayne never wears form-fitting leather.

The DVD: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, 5.1 Dolby Digital (English and French), commentary, two making-of featurettes and a digital copy.

Closing Statement

Avoid this and focus on more substantial uses of your time, like horticulture. You don't even have to plant anything. Just dig holes for 70 minutes.

The Verdict

Blecch.

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