BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
REVIEW: Well better late then never, but finally here's my review of the third Uwe Boll BloodRayne epic, BloodRayne: The Third Reich. It's interesting to note that these movies, along with the In the Name of the King trilogy, are some of his more successful film franchises with three films each. Some others, such as Alone in the Dark, Seed, and Rampage, got at least one sequel but these two franchises got three each.
I may be putting myself before the firing squad here, but I'm actually a bit of a Uwe Boll fan myself, even though I can admit there's probably no reason why I should like them, considering they are in no shape, way, or form good movies, but admittedly they're pretty fun for me to watch.
The story to this BloodRayne entry, while told in a different time period and setting, is actually pretty similar to BloodRayne 2: Deliverance in which the main Big Bad of the movie, which happens to be a vampire, wants to create an army of Vampires. In Deliverance it was Billy the Kid, and he wanted to spread Vampirism around the good 'ol US of A, and here in The Third Reich it's a Vampire Nazi who, realizing the potential of Rayne's blood, wants to use it to create an army of half-human/half-vampire Damphirs to aid Hitler and the Nazi army in the war. Its an okay storyline but with it coming right on the heels of the second movie, I'm sure using a near identical plot can get a bit boring and repetitive for audiences, especially since Boll pulled similar stunt with In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds and In The Name of the King 3: The Last Mission.
Repetitive plot aside, the action in this one is actually pretty decent and helps to hold your interest since the plot doesn't have much going for it. In this go-around, and unlike in the second movie, Rayne in fact gets to use blades a lot more, which is always a good bonus for me since I love those weapons. Though there is one thing different here regarding those weapons than in the past two films - The blades this time around actually look like just regular generic swords compared to the unique design they had in the previous two movies. It almost feels like Boll decided to switch things around and redesigned them for this entry, though why he thought that was a good idea is beyond me, since I liked them so much more with their original and unique design. Rayne herself also never has the same design throughout these films; She had a nice leather outfit in the first movie, than understandably she had her cowboy look in the second, and here she's got not only another new set of clothes, but also gone is her trademark fiery red hair as well, replaced with a dark jet-black dye job, though there is still a throwback to the red by way of red streaks. Though in all fairness, I'm pretty sure such hair dye didn't actually exist back then, but oh well. You can't really apply such real-world logic to these kinds of movies anyway without the B-Movie gods threatening to smite you down.
I remember during pre-production on this one there were rumors that Uwe Boll was trying to get Kristanna Loken back to reprise the role of Rayne from the first movie, but apparently that never happened as Natassia Malthe from the second movie ended up being the one to return, and as much of a fan of Loken that I am, I'm actually perfectly fine with that outcome as Malthe is equally as enjoyable to watch, and certainly not hard on the eyes either. And trust me, the eyes get quite a lot of her here as this movie has no less than two pretty hot and heavy sex scenes that, rather admittedly, only happen just for the sake of having them. They serve no purpose to the story whatsoever and actually feel tacked on and totally out of place. They were pretty much just an excuse to see Natassia Malthe naked. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about having to see such a beautiful woman naked in some hot steamy sex scenes, but I'd really rather it wasn't at the sacrifice of the flow of the movie. Find some reasonable reason to include them in than that's fine, but if not than don't even bother has always been my philosophy.
Moving on though, much like with the second movie there's very little here by way of CGI effects. Most of what we get pretty much consists of vampires turning to ash when they die, and the lead Big Bad vampire having a few CGI veins showing once or twice after drinking Rayne's blood. That's pretty much it. Not that such a thing is a negative, as the movie's plot isn't really one that calls for much CGI, but still worth noting all the same.
Overall BloodRayne: The Third Reich is definitely an interesting entry in the series. While slow to start, it does pick up it's pace before long, and I for one was definitely entertained during it's brief runtime. Actually, I may be wrong here but this one I think is actually the shortest of the BloodRayne movies at a brisk 1
hour and 19 minutes long. And that's actually another complaint I have, mainly because it feels very rushed and almost like it's an edited-for-TV version (story-wise I mean, certainly not for blood, swearing, or nudity, of which the movie has in spades), seeming like chunks are missing here and there. It very easily could
have been extended, even by just 10-15 minutes, and it could have helped make the movie feel more...full. The worst damage though that I feel is done to the movie by this aspect is where the ending of the movie is concerned - It ends so abruptly at what is clearly the start
of essentially the climatic action scene, thus leading us to feel robbed of it and like there's still more to
be had with Rayne and her band of friends fighting these Nazis.
And truthfully, I do sincerely hope we get it. While these may not be the greatest movies ever made, they are quite a guilty pleasure of mine and I would love to see Rayne return for a fourth movie in the franchise, something that has been long-rumored but still yet to see fruition.
6/10 Rooms in the Psych Ward
It's sad to see that such engaging and fun game was turned to boring movie schlock. And to my surprise Uwe Boll's first installment actually is not the worst.
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