Not based on a chewing-gum wrapper, thank God.

Rating: Null/10 (30 March 2010)

There used to be a time when movies had been based on novels. Then, when they ran out of good novels to adapt to the screen, they resorted to cheap dime-a-dozen novels. Then short stories, and now comic-books. I guess it's only a matter of time until big-budget flicks use pamphlets as their inspiration... Chewing-gum wrappers, too? Toilet-paper rolls?...
Even worse, yet another vampire film.
The good news, however, is that not all comic-book-based films have to be unwatchable pieces of childish Dreck a-la "Spiderman" or "Ghost Rider". The other good news is that this isn't yet another dreary vampire flick. 30DON is the best ever horror film with fanged bipeds, if we discount "The Hunger" which is more like a horror drama. Gone is the suave, cape-wearing, coffin fetishist who woos the thick, impressionable maiden with his outlandish foreign accent. That's about as scary as an episode of "Will & Grace".
The third piece of good news is that the director of the legendarily asinine "Hard Candy" doesn't deliver rubbish this time around.
These vampires aren't interested in chit-chat, their coffins are well out of the viewers' sight, and they never open their mouths simply to reveal clean, polished, white Hollywood dentures. The make-up is terrific, unusual, the fact that they use an unrecognizable language gets thumbs up too. An extra third thumb up goes for the leader of the vampires; for the actor who plays him so well, and his overall look and behaviour. He never snickers like the stereotypical blithering idiot baddie, and that's rare in such movies too.
Sure, there's some nonsense, after all this is a vampire flick. The logic isn't all there, but the stylish direction, the visually impressive locations, and a fast pace make up for the flaws.
I would just like to know why an Owen-Wilson-like pipsqueak such as Ben Foster gets cast in sci-fi ("Pandorum") and horror films. I was kind of hoping that the days of midget-heroes (Cruise, Gere, Dorff, Slater) were coming to an end. Wrong again...