Film review: Vampire Academy
How did you spend your big scary non-cyclone weekend? I spent mine hanging out with my 12-year-old cousin watching Vampire Academy – a "it's not Twlight!!" vampire movie that was just absolutely terrible.
Based of the best selling (like that means anything anymore – 50 Shades anyone?) series by Richelle Mead. The film stars Zoey Deutch, Danila Kozlovsky, and Lucy Fry.
The story features a 17-year-old Dhampir (half-human/vampire) guardian-in-training Rose Hathaway, and her royal Moroi (the peaceful, mortal vampires) best friend Lissa Dragomir.
Rose has secret forbidden (of course) with her Dhampir mentor Dimitri, who is super old looking but plays a 25-year-old. They have to protect Lissa from some threat against the Strigoi (bloodthirsty, undead vampires), while a second threat is in the works right under their noses.
I didn't hate the movie as much as I hated Twlight, because I think it knows it's ridiculous. The Twilight films and their fans (please don't send me hatemail) have some weird thing where they take themselves so seriously they actually think Twlight is good, remarkable story telling. Vampire Academy didn't really give me that impression.
The script does try to be funny and clever, even throwing in a dig about how the vampires don't sparkle (shame Edward Cullen, you so scary).
But it's that same old routine where these teenagers have all the responsibility in the world to protect themselves against this big evil threat, yet they are still worried about what they're going to wear to their school dance. I mean come on. If I were scared that these dangerous evil vampires were about to ravage and kill and the good vampires, I probably would've skipped the school dance.
And there's this one super awkward scene (especially since I was with my 12-year-cousin) where Rose and Dimitri are under some "lust spell" and rip each other's clothes off and nearly go at it.
It's uncomfortable because the guy playing Dimitri is like 47 and massive and the girl playing Rose is like 18 and a tiny human. It was weird.
The acting was terrible throughout the whole thing and half the time I didn't really know what was going on. I was also sad because one of the vampires is that girl from Modern Family and I think she's awesome but she was certainly not awesome at all in this terrible, terrible film.
I don't think they'll make five movies out of the five books that were published (at least I hope not), so you'll probably be safe seeing this one and not having to commit to a whole series of awfulness.
If you're looking for your latest guilty pleasure teen rom com supernatural craze before Divergent comes out, this is a safe bet. Or go watch Interview with the Vampire because all these new vampire movies are ruining everything!
Rating: 1/5
