Today is a good day, nay a great day. For today dear reader, marks the last Uwe Boll film that I have to review in this run of Loading Screen. If you’re a regular reader then you’ll know the standard criticisms of Boll’s films, we’ll get to them soon enough I’m sure.

Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance sees the return of Rayne, the raven haired dhamphir, except this time rather than set in the days of yore, she’s out in the wild west. There’s no explanation as to who Rayne is, in fact she doesn’t appear until at least 30 minutes in. It’s also never really explained that time has passed. It’s like a reboot for the ‘franchise’, but also entirely reliant on knowing the characters, and with the references to Brimstone, also being intimately aware of the events of the first film.

Now I’m not going to pretend that this makes any sense, but here’s a synopsis of the plot. Billy the Kid is a vampire, an ancient vampire. He rocks up at the town of Deliverance, a few weeks before the opening of a new train station, thus opening up Deliverance to the rest of America. He turns some of the townsfolk into vampires, kills others, and lets a few remain as humans. He kidnaps all the kids in the town to use as hostages and food. Rayne comes to town looking for her friends, and stumbles on the whole mess, and decides to put a stop to the Kid‘s plan.

As ill-fitting with the Bloodrayne games as it is, and it is, the concept of a wild west vampire film is not that bad. A vampire controlling an entire town, isolated from help until a means of help opens up that will only serve to help spread the vampire plague, I‘ve heard worse. The one thing you’d think you could count on would be lots and lots of gunfights, but they are few and far between. To be fair to Bloodrayne there is a fairly lengthy one towards its end, but even that is fairly neutered.

Bloodrayne doesn’t even stick to its own rules. It’s set up early on that you need silver bullets, blessed ones at that, to kill a vampire, but by the end of the film the townsfolk are offing the undead with their standard rifles. Fair play to them, but it makes the vampire threat seem a bit mediocre. The lack of continuity is extended to Rayne. in the first film she took down the vampire king, here she struggles to beat standard vampires.

As usual for Boll’s films Bloodrayne moves at a snails pace. Perhaps he’s attempting to build tension, but the gun fights in particular dawdle along to inevitability. Also typical for Boll’s films is the comedy falling flat. The obscene preacher is neither shocking nor witty, he does get slightly more bearable before he meets his end though, to the point I was almost sad to see him go. Chris Coppola again makes an appearance in a Boll film, having also featured in Postal and as the annoying boat guy in Far Cry. He too is more tolerable here, but his role as comedic foil helps create a peculiar feel to the whole film; it just isn’t sure how straight it wants to play things.

The other chief actors aren’t unfamiliar to video game movies either. Postal Dude Zack Ward makes his virtually guaranteed appearance, playing Billy the Kid. It would be easy to tear into Ward’s performance, he is after all playing a Transylvanian, vampiric cowboy, but he actually does the vampire part quite well, perhaps a little too well. Him putting the effort he does into the role makes it more comedic than it should be, given some of the performances elsewhere (see the sheriff), and just the general ineptitude of Bloodrayne 2. Natassia Malthe, who takes over as Rayne this time out, has also starred Dead or Alive and the Alone in the Dark sequel. Here she lacks the presence to really stand out, which given that she’s the star is a bit damning. She doesn’t do a huge amount wrong, she just doesn’t dominate the camera as she should, and as the likes of Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich and Kristanna Loken (star of the first Bloodrayne) do.

So does Bloodrayne 2 get anything right? Well firstly the cast haven’t decided to give up this time (see the Bloodrayne review), and the film is astonishingly not gratuitous. The lead is a beautiful young actress wearing tight leather, you’d expect Boll to have a field day with that, but he doesn’t. He even holds back on the gore, bullet wounds are invariably clean, no ones limbs are torn off, in fact the whole thing is remarkably bloodless considering. Boll also manages to create some tension with the way he uses children in Bloodrayne. I’m reluctant to give him too much credit for this as I suspect it was merely a cheap shock tactic, but it does work.

Ultimately Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance is incredibly dull, idiotic and boring film. It bears little to no resemblance to its source, and fails at everything it attempts. It’s a less interesting watch than its predecessor, even if it is technically more accomplished. So Boll’s Loading Screen run ends with a yawn, and for those counting that’s one passable film out of the lot (Far Cry).

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So we've finished our look at the Tomb Raider films, at least until the possible new one next year (or the year after). They aren't bad films but I am a little Tomb Raidered out. Oh well. back to mr Boll next eek

The second Tomb Raider film was deemed a failure, rightly so to some extent. At the time of its release Angelina Jolie was very much A-list, and Lara Croft herself was also a household name. Given that, and the clearly sizable budget, Cradle of Life probably should have done a bit better. Paramount blamed the poor Angel of Darkness game, others that the first film just wasn’t good enough for people to go and watch the sequel.

A shame really as Cradle of Life is much better than the first Tomb Raider film, for the first hour or so at least. This time out Lara comes across an orb once owned by Alexander the Great. The orb is actually a map to the titular ‘cradle of life’, the place where all life was born, and where Pandora’s box resides. As always it’s not just Lara who’s after the treasure, the evil Jonathan Reiss is also after the box so he can sell it, then when the plague housed within is eventually released, he can sell the cure and make a killing… so to speak.

The plot may be Indiana Jones through and through, but the locations and reliance on technology have more in common with Bond. There’s probably fewer special effects in this sequel, certainly the giant robots and fighting statues are gone, but the location hopping shows some cash being thrown. It’s not just the multitude of locales either, the studio sets are huge and are destroyed pretty much the moment Lara arrives in them.

Again the action is well choreographed, and some of the stunts are suitably overblown and ridiculous. Jolie has become an even better Lara, scampering up architecture and performing acrobatics with the best of them. Of course how much of the spectacular stuff is Angelina and how much is her stunt double (assuming she had one) is worth bearing in mind. Admittedly much of the action is needless, for example the motocross along the Great Wall, surely that will only attract unwanted attention. There’s also the shark punch scene, the sharks initial grunting was stupid enough, but its reaction to getting a smack is out of place and cartoony.

Unfortunately the characters are a bit one dimensional, particularly the enemies. Jonathan Reiss is the kind of unrelenting bad guy that plagued the Brosnan Bond films, and his Euro trash body guard is even worse. Lara’s love interest Terry has a bit more to him, but we aren’t told enough about him to see him as anything other than conniving. Hillary (the butler) and Bryce (tech guy) were far more fleshed out characters in the first film, here they barely feature, their only role to act as Lara’s weakness.

Angelina’s accent isn’t as good in this film, but in every other aspect she builds on the character. I mentioned last week that Jolie’s Lara was/is more likable than Ascensions, and it’s still true here. There’s a scene where Lara gets a Chinese family to let her use their television, she’s playful and smiley. Had the same scene appeared in Ascension I can’t see them letting her on their boathouse, let alone allowing her to stick bubblegum on their new HD telly.

If you ignore the premise of the Cradle of Life and Pandora’s box, this second Tomb Raider is more grounded in reality. A hyper reality admittedly, but it’s focus on athleticism and technology is certainly easier to swallow than the first films time travel. Things do take a bit of a dive when the shadow monsters turn up. The Cradle itself isn’t much better, it’s menacing enough, but the Escher dimension shifting isn’t especially well done, nor the tiny pool of black acid tears.

Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life is not a great film, it is better than the first film, and definitely much better than your average game film. Had it stuck closer to the Bond way of doing things, rather than the more comic-book moments such as shark punching, then it would have been a much better film. As it stands it’s still a decent inoffensive action film in its own right, and probably the best Tomb Raider film you could really hope for.

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Something a bit different this week, but still continuing our Lara theme, Tomb Raider: Ascension. There’s not a wealth of information around about this film, in fact the official website wont load past the intro page, but here’s what we do know. Directed by Midlands director Stephen Reynolds over 7 days, for a paltry £10,000, Ascension is a prequel looking at how Lara became a ‘tomb raider’.

The films opens with the young Lady Lara on a plane, her and her mother have had to return early from a snowboarding holiday because her father, also a ‘tomb raider’ (and not on board), has made an important discovery. The plane crashes leaving only one survivor, Lara, who now resents her father even more than she did, blaming him for her mothers death.

The story picks back up again a few years later, at some point in the intervening years Lara’s father has died, leaving her as heir to the Croft name. This upsets her uncle who reveals that it wasn’t her father who set about rescuing her from the plane crash, but him. Her father was obsessed with an artefact brought back to England from Mexico, choosing the artefact over searching for his daughter. The stone has since been lost down a mine but has the power to destroy the world. Lara, naturally, sets about retrieving it.

If I’m honest the acting is less than great. I was hoping to throw in an ‘except for’ there, but there really isn’t anyone who stands out as being so much better than others. Perhaps it’s due to a lack of gloss and sheen, a kind of homemade feel that was always likely to sink capable performances. We’re largely dealing with first timers, hardly seasoned Hollywood A-listers. To be fair to her, the girl playing Lara is reasonably convincing in the action heroine role, certainly there’s no sign of apprehension with the hand to hand stuff, abseiling etc. The extra’s though are fairly shocking, but I suspect the budget plays a part in this.

Compared to her big budget version, this Lara is incredibly dislikeable, a trait she shares with most of the cast. From the opening scene Lara is surly and bitter, a spoilt self-centred brat. Her smile does come out towards the end of the film, but by then the character seems distant and frankly in need of a humiliating defeat. Her uncle is incredibly cruel, so much so that it makes no sense he would have been the one to save her from the crash. Her mother reminds me of the kind of middle-class woman who’d try to get someone fired because a shop is out of organic potatoes. Her father too, he’s so aloof yet is supposed to love her, as such it‘s hard to care for his fate, nor believe the lengths he goes to for Lara.

There’s a few issues with the plot too. Probably the most important one is why an artefact that could destroy the world is brought back from the other side of the world, then just left out in the open of a easily traversable cave. Lara’s father was so obsessed with this item that he was willing to let his daughter die for it, yet when he discovers the location of it he doesn’t act, instead he writes a note for his daughter, all the while knowing his brother is going all out to find it. Which brings us to the issue of Lara herself. She hates her father yet follows in his footsteps, and even though he dies while she’s still a kid, her father is so convinced she’ll do so he leaves the fate of the world in her hands.

There’s some shocking dialogue, especially Lara’s uncle, some of what he says just plain doesn’t make sense. The combat has been worked on, but there’s still issues, for example Lara managing to overpower a man who must be at least 4 times her weight. There’s a few laughable death scenes to admire too, not to mention the somewhat anti-climactic setting of a cave, in a wood, in England.

The difficulty in writing this review is whether or not to cut Ascension some slack. On one hand it’s a budget film made in a week, on the other I should only recommend you watch this if it’s up to par. Which sadly it’s not. It’s only an hour long but it is every inch the budget product, feeling very fan-made.

That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad film, in fact it’s one of the more accomplished fan efforts I’ve seen. Unfortunately it’s hard to like, there’s few highlights and plenty of lows. I’m not entirely sure of the legality of anything around this film, but it does seem to be freely available on the internet for download, with a DVD on the way. Given its availability, it’s hard to tell you not to watch it, there was a lot of work put in, but it’s still worse than the other Tomb Raider movies. Hardly surprising, but it’s the truth.

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One of the main reasons for Loading Screen’s existence was to look at those video game adaptations that had sailed under the radar. Most people reading this will have already seen Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and as such you don’t really need a review from me. That said we’re working our way through all the video game films, so we might as well get it out of the way.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a confused film, on one hand it’s a character led action film, on the other driven by nonsensical mythology. Lara is a ‘tomb raider’, a mercenary who hunts down lost treasures for money, following in the footsteps of her late father. She’s done very well for herself, but hunts treasures more for the glory and adventure than the profits. She soon comes to the attention of the ‘Illuminati’ when she finds an ancient mystical key, that when used during the upcoming aligning of the planets can grant the holder power over time and destruction.

The character aspect of Tomb Raider is handled quite well, Lara is both likable and sympathetic; even more so when you compare her to Alice from the Resident Evil series or the girls from Onechanbara. The sub plot surrounding Lara’s fathers death aren’t well presented, he went missing in 1985 yet Lara still obsesses over him to ridiculous levels. He also went to bizarrely contrived lengths to seep information to Lara. He hides a clock under the stairs of their mansion that somehow the worlds greatest treasure hunter missed until it ticks loud enough to be heard through a heavy wooden box and a wall. He then sends her a post-humus letter via his solicitors which includes a vague-ish clue. This clue leads to the very back of a book by Blake, which hides the real letter explaining that he knew she would have pieced it together by now. Why not just send the letter in the first place, or at least leave it with the clock? Also given that he dies when she is still a child, how can he be so sure she’s going to grow up to be a treasure hunter, let alone a good one?

Anyway we’re getting off topic. Tomb Raider starts off somewhat grounded in reality, exaggerated reality admittedly, but we’ve got high end technology and Special Ops. The Special Ops stuff is actually quite good, it gives Lara something to fight, a chance to show off without becoming too ridiculous. Soon though we’re presented with magic children who appear to guide Lara for no apparent reason, statues that come to life, that no one involved is the slightest bit phased by, magic Buddhist water, and of course time travel. It’s when the time travel makes its appearance that the film begins to fall apart. There’s a comical scene where Lara and the films villain are racing up the side of a pyramid to grab the magic stone, it’s when that happens you really get the impression that the writers/producers/director hadn’t really thought beyond the first few action scenes.

Tomb Raider is suitably action packed though, and for the most part it’s very good. As daft as the premise for fighting walking statues is, it does allow for some showy gunplay. There’s plenty of acrobatics from Lara, some competent hand to hand, and some great vehicle stunts. Ignoring the final 30 minutes the special effects hold up quite well, there’s a few rough edges here and there, but you really appreciate that this had quite a large budget for a game film.

Jolie’s depiction of Miss Croft is superior to that of the game, she brings a sardonic smile to the character, and remains humorous and quietly intelligent right through the film. Bar the overwrought scenes with her father I might add. Special mention to Jolie’s British accent, it’s not perfect, and her and others use ‘bugger’ (or ‘bagga’) far too much, but it‘s better than most and pitch right for the character. John Voigt (playing Lara’s father) sounds like an Eddie Izzard impression, and for some reason Daniel Craig is tasked with an American accent that he doesn’t quite manage. I suspect he was hired as a Brit until someone higher up decided it needed a Yank.

I could go on listing faults, and I’m not saying this merely to seem all cynical and cool, it would take up far too much space. Tomb Raider has massive plot holes, and littered with the kind of stupidity that I’m amazed it even got the one sequel. However there is enough to like about Tomb Raider to make it worth a watch. The action is probably the best a videogame adaptation has seen. Lara herself contributes to the enjoyment; there’s the obvious reasons for liking any character played by Jolie, but she is so much stronger than most videogame film characters, enough that a lot of the problems can be forgiven.

Terrible then, at least as a coherent piece of cinema, but as a brainless family action film I’d actually recommend it.

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Rack To The Future
By Ben / 2009-05-26 08:51:16

Angelina Jolie, I used tol ove her, almost to stalker levels, but since she paired off with Pitt-face that love has wained.
Y'see I know my limitations, and knowing that she used to go out with Brad but is now in my basement would always haunt her, and knowing she knows that would always haunt me.

Good news then, there's a new Tomb Raider film on the way and it's going to star an all new Lara, free from Pitt stains! (that's more revolting than I was intending, sorry)

According to Dan Lin (who's also producing the new Terminator movie)the new Tomb Raider film will be
"A great origin story that we're going to tell - very character-oriented, more realistic than the past Lara Croft movies,"

"It is an origin story, so it is a younger Lara Croft".

As a heads up, we'll be reviewing the first two Tomb Raider films in the next few weeks.

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New Tomb Raider Move on the Way
By Ben / 2009-01-28 08:43:56

A bit of Loading Screen related news, it seems that there's a new Tomb Raider film in the works, although if true it's still some time away.

Dan Lin, produce of upcoming Terminator Salvation and Sherlock Holmes, is supposedly in line to prduce with Megan Fox in line to play Lara.

Warner Bros. will be at the helm of the project as they apparently aquired the rights when they bought shares in Eidos.

For what it's worth I thought both the Tomb Raider films were watchable, I wouldn't pay money to see either, but they're entertaining enough. Or maybe that's just because I'm not a fan of the series.

Source: TheHollywoodReporter

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