Underwhelming - great idea, weak film

Rating: Null/10 (27 September 2003)

The preview came on one day, while I was watching some show. Some show that was instantly rendered meaningless when I saw Kate. And Vampires. And Werewolves. Fighting. Killing. And Kate. They finally made the greatest movie ever, I thought. Even though the film was three weeks away at that time, I got my sleeping bag and cheese and crackers and went and camped out at my local Coronet theatre. 1,000 seats. Nice and big. I was ready to be horrified and thrilled and titillated (in the just the right vampire way - you don't put Kate in the film if you're not gonna use that booty), but all I got was the horror. And that was because of how weak -- yes, so very weak -- the film was. Kate spends most of her time driving a very nice car through 'Blue City', some crappy European town where it rains all the time and is blue. Or grey. Or blue and grey. When she's not doing that, her favorite pastime is to pout and stomp through the Vampire Mansion, whining to Kraven (the head of the vampire coven, and a bigger whiner than Kate) about the drapes being the wrong color, and not giving him any play. The vampires, as a group, are petty, dull, boring and vacuous, while the werewolves are grim, grimy, well-muscled, and psychotic. There isn't one likable character in the whole story, primarily because there wasn't any time spent on character development. As such, it's like watching really pretty mannequins try to do a vampire movie. The action scenes are sort of fun, but impersonal, like watching a circus with no audience, and no music. Stuff happens, people die, the mannequins look cool, but there's no feeling attached to it. And good vampire movies have to have feeling. If I wanted to spend my time seeing boring, cranky, old people, I could do it for free at the old folks' home. This movie is stylish, but dull and empty. There aren't even any good laughs. Good vampire films always have a joke or two thrown in there. For balance. Please don't waste your time and money, on this sad failure.