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fembuckSo, I just got back from seeing Rise: The Blood Hunter and it was a hot mess. I'm not really sure how it got released in theaters because everything about it screamed 'straight to DVD'. That being said, it fell into that 5ive Girls category of so bad it's really, really entertaining.
The Good
#1
First, off all the movie starts out with Lucy Liu looking badass stealing a chick (Paula, Dina Meyer's daughter from 'Point Pleasant') away from Robert Forester at a bar. Okay, so that's misleading, Paula is a prostitute ... sorry, entrepreneur and Lucy Liu offers her more money than Robert Forester so Paula happily goes off with Lucy to literally be her bitch.
This is how the movie STARTS!
Then when they get to the house, Lucy orders Paula to take off her clothes because she "wants to get a look at [her]." Paula takes off her dress as Lucy sits on a couch looking badass. Lucy is all, I'm gonna arch my eyebrow at you because that bra is still on and I said undress. So Paula takes off the bra and then sashays over to Lucy, falling to her knees in front of her.
Paula totally spreads Lucy's legs open and then moves into kiss her, telling her that she doesn't usually do this but ... Paula doesn't really finish the sentence but we've all seen Lucy Liu so I'm guessing it would have been something along the lines of "you're panty dampingly hawt".
At this point I'm thinking the movie was really, really worth the price of admission.
Then Lucy asks if her hands are clean, and Paula's all like "the fuck?" and Lucy tells her to wash her hands.
The scene stops being sexy and disturbing after that.
But seriously, best opening ever!
#2
Carla Gugino rocks. Her role in this is actually a pretty glorified cameo (sob), but when she's on screen she pwns it. She was glamorous, and mysterious and dangerous and sexy. The perfect femme fatale. Honestly, her lips twitching in an almost smile is like the crazy hottest thing ever. Also, despite the fact that Eve is one of the 'bad guys', Carla was the only one able to make me actually care about her character. When she gave her little speech about how she couldn't kill Lucy after seeing how hard she fought to hold on to life, and how after she turned her she hoped that Lucy would find her again, I totally wanted them to fall in vampire love with each other. Seriously, CG is so good in everything!
Plus Carla got one of the best lines in the film. She's in a bathroom stall about to kill this sailor guy (who I think plays Sorenson on Friday Night Lights), and Lucy kicks the stall door open and points a crossbow at Eve, and Eve goes "Don't worry. She's my sister." Oh, I had a good laugh at that one.
#3
The awakening scene. When Lucy first wakes up newly vamped, the next ten minutes or so of the film are genuinely decent. It's also the first of Lucy Liu's many gratuitous nude scenes. Basically it's like watching a new born go out into the world, and everything is bright and confusing, and she's desperate and feeling things she doesn't understand, trying to fight her instincts and losing the battle. Really liked this whole sequence.
#4
Lucy Liu has many gratuitous nude scenes. I'm not joking, it's like she got a bonus every time she took off her top or something. I swear to you all that in one scene she actually took off her top just to answer the phone! And then we got, waist up side and frontal shots of her taking topless on the phone! Unbelievably. Near the end, I was like "just put your poncho back on!"
#5
Random cameos. Robert Forester was on screen for literally like 2 minutes. Simon Rex showed up as a punk ass motel clerk. Samaire Armstrong showed up as a spunky but trashy meal. Marilyn Mason (*shudder* Why, Evan Rachel Wood, WHHHHHHY?) showed up as a creepy looking bartender. And then best of all ... Nick Lachey popped up as a car jacker! Whaaaaaa?
Then there were a bunch of "hey it's that guy!" appearances. Like that guy that always plays rapists on Law and Order: SVU, and that kinda chubby guy that always plays kinda chubby losers.
#6
The hitchhiking pot dude. This guy was gold. I loved almost everything about this scene. So funny.
The Bad
1. The Direction
Seriously, when I notice that the direction is bad, you know it's bad. There was one scene with two girls sitting in a car, and for like 3 minutes the camera just panned back and forth at close-ups of their faces. Terrible. Plus there's a lot of confusing flashbacks, and for some reason the director loved shining bright lights right at the camera after a scene of darkness for no particular reason other than to burn my retina's most of the time.
2. Lucy's "Disguise"
If you thought Clark Kent taking of his glasses and slicking his hair was a stupid "disguise" wait until you see Lucy's. Basically, when she becomes a badass vampire hunter she ... cuts her hair. Yeah, you read that right. She cuts her hair, and then everybody is all like "who are you?" *sigh*
3. The Dialogue
"It's like Dungeons and Dragons with nipple rings"
"Death isn't what it used to be"
"I'm not a person anymore!"
"Sex and murder are the only true pleasures left to man." *uncomfortable silence* "Ha ha, I almost had you there!"
So many laugh out loud moments of dialogue. It was so terrible it was kind of awesome.
4. The magical crossbow of JUSTICE!
So Lucy has a cross bow (that she carries around in her purse), and never has any other metal stake things with her, yet until its crucial to the plot she is able to magically reload the crossbow again and again.
5. Master Splinter
I don't know that actors name, but I don't like him. He has the same delivery in every movie and I hate it in every movie. He sucks. He totally ruined the 'training montage' scenes for me. And training montage scene are usually gold. Then again there wasn't much training or much montage so much as there was sitting around on the floor while incense burned and reciting bad dialogue. But still!
6. The Vampires
They were kind of wimps. They used little knives to kill people (hey, producer idiots, the fangs are sexy, you should have kept them!) Actually, that's my major haterage about them, but it's a big one. I like the fangs!
7. Cliches Abound
Everyone in this movie is a cliche:
The cop who's daughter is brutally killed who goes rogue and turns to the bottle.
Evil rich semi-handsome british dudes.
An old Asian manservant/henchman.
A reporter on a search for truth and justice.
A perverted old rich man in a wheel chair with a torture chamber in his bedroom (okay, maybe that's not really a cliche but it felt like it watching the movie).
Gothic chicks that think vampires are sexy.
And so on.
Bah, there's loads other bad stuff but I'm getting sleepy now.
Overall, I have to say that I was mostly entertained and there were a lot of muttered comments and laughs watching this. Most of the laughs were unintentional due to the awfulness of just about everything about the film, but in it's utter terribleness there was some beauty.
So, yeah if you like 'so bad they loop around to being good' movies, then you'd probably enjoy this. I'd wait for the DVD to come out though (which will probably be in like two weeks since it's probably going to be yanked from theaters like Monday) so that you can laugh, and point and mock as loudly as you want.
The Good
#1
First, off all the movie starts out with Lucy Liu looking badass stealing a chick (Paula, Dina Meyer's daughter from 'Point Pleasant') away from Robert Forester at a bar. Okay, so that's misleading, Paula is a prostitute ... sorry, entrepreneur and Lucy Liu offers her more money than Robert Forester so Paula happily goes off with Lucy to literally be her bitch.
This is how the movie STARTS!
Then when they get to the house, Lucy orders Paula to take off her clothes because she "wants to get a look at [her]." Paula takes off her dress as Lucy sits on a couch looking badass. Lucy is all, I'm gonna arch my eyebrow at you because that bra is still on and I said undress. So Paula takes off the bra and then sashays over to Lucy, falling to her knees in front of her.
Paula totally spreads Lucy's legs open and then moves into kiss her, telling her that she doesn't usually do this but ... Paula doesn't really finish the sentence but we've all seen Lucy Liu so I'm guessing it would have been something along the lines of "you're panty dampingly hawt".
At this point I'm thinking the movie was really, really worth the price of admission.
Then Lucy asks if her hands are clean, and Paula's all like "the fuck?" and Lucy tells her to wash her hands.
The scene stops being sexy and disturbing after that.
But seriously, best opening ever!
#2
Carla Gugino rocks. Her role in this is actually a pretty glorified cameo (sob), but when she's on screen she pwns it. She was glamorous, and mysterious and dangerous and sexy. The perfect femme fatale. Honestly, her lips twitching in an almost smile is like the crazy hottest thing ever. Also, despite the fact that Eve is one of the 'bad guys', Carla was the only one able to make me actually care about her character. When she gave her little speech about how she couldn't kill Lucy after seeing how hard she fought to hold on to life, and how after she turned her she hoped that Lucy would find her again, I totally wanted them to fall in vampire love with each other. Seriously, CG is so good in everything!
Plus Carla got one of the best lines in the film. She's in a bathroom stall about to kill this sailor guy (who I think plays Sorenson on Friday Night Lights), and Lucy kicks the stall door open and points a crossbow at Eve, and Eve goes "Don't worry. She's my sister." Oh, I had a good laugh at that one.
#3
The awakening scene. When Lucy first wakes up newly vamped, the next ten minutes or so of the film are genuinely decent. It's also the first of Lucy Liu's many gratuitous nude scenes. Basically it's like watching a new born go out into the world, and everything is bright and confusing, and she's desperate and feeling things she doesn't understand, trying to fight her instincts and losing the battle. Really liked this whole sequence.
#4
Lucy Liu has many gratuitous nude scenes. I'm not joking, it's like she got a bonus every time she took off her top or something. I swear to you all that in one scene she actually took off her top just to answer the phone! And then we got, waist up side and frontal shots of her taking topless on the phone! Unbelievably. Near the end, I was like "just put your poncho back on!"
#5
Random cameos. Robert Forester was on screen for literally like 2 minutes. Simon Rex showed up as a punk ass motel clerk. Samaire Armstrong showed up as a spunky but trashy meal. Marilyn Mason (*shudder* Why, Evan Rachel Wood, WHHHHHHY?) showed up as a creepy looking bartender. And then best of all ... Nick Lachey popped up as a car jacker! Whaaaaaa?
Then there were a bunch of "hey it's that guy!" appearances. Like that guy that always plays rapists on Law and Order: SVU, and that kinda chubby guy that always plays kinda chubby losers.
#6
The hitchhiking pot dude. This guy was gold. I loved almost everything about this scene. So funny.
The Bad
1. The Direction
Seriously, when I notice that the direction is bad, you know it's bad. There was one scene with two girls sitting in a car, and for like 3 minutes the camera just panned back and forth at close-ups of their faces. Terrible. Plus there's a lot of confusing flashbacks, and for some reason the director loved shining bright lights right at the camera after a scene of darkness for no particular reason other than to burn my retina's most of the time.
2. Lucy's "Disguise"
If you thought Clark Kent taking of his glasses and slicking his hair was a stupid "disguise" wait until you see Lucy's. Basically, when she becomes a badass vampire hunter she ... cuts her hair. Yeah, you read that right. She cuts her hair, and then everybody is all like "who are you?" *sigh*
3. The Dialogue
"It's like Dungeons and Dragons with nipple rings"
"Death isn't what it used to be"
"I'm not a person anymore!"
"Sex and murder are the only true pleasures left to man." *uncomfortable silence* "Ha ha, I almost had you there!"
So many laugh out loud moments of dialogue. It was so terrible it was kind of awesome.
4. The magical crossbow of JUSTICE!
So Lucy has a cross bow (that she carries around in her purse), and never has any other metal stake things with her, yet until its crucial to the plot she is able to magically reload the crossbow again and again.
5. Master Splinter
I don't know that actors name, but I don't like him. He has the same delivery in every movie and I hate it in every movie. He sucks. He totally ruined the 'training montage' scenes for me. And training montage scene are usually gold. Then again there wasn't much training or much montage so much as there was sitting around on the floor while incense burned and reciting bad dialogue. But still!
6. The Vampires
They were kind of wimps. They used little knives to kill people (hey, producer idiots, the fangs are sexy, you should have kept them!) Actually, that's my major haterage about them, but it's a big one. I like the fangs!
7. Cliches Abound
Everyone in this movie is a cliche:
The cop who's daughter is brutally killed who goes rogue and turns to the bottle.
Evil rich semi-handsome british dudes.
An old Asian manservant/henchman.
A reporter on a search for truth and justice.
A perverted old rich man in a wheel chair with a torture chamber in his bedroom (okay, maybe that's not really a cliche but it felt like it watching the movie).
Gothic chicks that think vampires are sexy.
And so on.
Bah, there's loads other bad stuff but I'm getting sleepy now.
Overall, I have to say that I was mostly entertained and there were a lot of muttered comments and laughs watching this. Most of the laughs were unintentional due to the awfulness of just about everything about the film, but in it's utter terribleness there was some beauty.
So, yeah if you like 'so bad they loop around to being good' movies, then you'd probably enjoy this. I'd wait for the DVD to come out though (which will probably be in like two weeks since it's probably going to be yanked from theaters like Monday) so that you can laugh, and point and mock as loudly as you want.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 06:24 am (UTC)As for the description making it sound kind of awesome, it is, in a special way. If you love cheesy movies that you simply have to mock the entire time you're watching it, except for the parts with GOGA which are always good, and you have a weakness for vampire movies, and sexy evil people then you would totally love this film.
I'll even admit that once it makes it to the previously viewed section at blockbuster I will probably buy it for the extras and the possibility of a longer Liu/Gugino mackage session being in an extended cut or something.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 11:47 am (UTC)Really, is it so difficult for these people to write and direct a decent sexy-vampire-lesbian-lovers film?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 06:28 am (UTC)I definitely found it entertaining. That was mostly because of the mocking comments we were whispering back and for to each other and the gratuitous nudity, but it was still entertaining.
And Carla is totally drool worthy. Eve is absolutely mouth watering, and her big scene was like the only part of the film that had my undivided attention (well, that and the opening scene, lol). Too bad her role is basically a hyped up cameo.
Really, is it so difficult for these people to write and direct a decent sexy-vampire-lesbian-lovers film?
It seems so, though I can't imagine why. Though two ingredients should be like magic.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 04:44 pm (UTC)And yeeeeeah - this sounds definitely like a movie I'll con my friends into watching on DVD, and laugh my ass off at their reactions. xDDDD
no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 06:30 am (UTC)It's getting better with the romantic-comedy movie though. "Imagine You and Me" and "Gray Matters" were both genuinely entertaining films. Overall though, you are quite right *thinks of Dante's Cove and shudders uncontrollably*
And yeeeeeah - this sounds definitely like a movie I'll con my friends into watching on DVD, and laugh my ass off at their reactions. xDDDD
Totally. Alcohol would probably help too, lol.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 09:34 pm (UTC)And if it makes you shudder, I refuse to even entertain the idea of watching Dante's Cove. Ever.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-03 10:20 pm (UTC)If you can find it cheap (and by cheap I mean free) then I would check out about ten minutes of it and then back away as quickly as you can. It might be interesting to just see how bad a television show can be.
Don't watch more than ten minutes though, because it's strangely addictive once you've invested an hour or two into it, and then you're trapped.
But yeah, scary bad. And pretty much pornographic (they actually employ porn stars) ... don't get too excited though, it's MALE porn stars.
I'm honestly amazed they have a set left after all of the scenery chewing that goes on
no subject
Date: 2007-06-04 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-04 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-04 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 02:34 pm (UTC)