In the future research into a rare blood anomaly has gotten out of control, making it more infectious and deadly than nature ever did. It spreads. The world become split between the uninfected humans and those infected who have developed the traits of the vampires of old. Known as Hemophages, they fight back in a war led by Daxus as head of the new totalitarian world. In the middle of this war is Violet, a Hemophage whose infection lost her child. Violet steals a secret weapon from Daxus to return to her people. However when the weapon turns out to be a human child with a mutation in his blood Violet hesitates. She goes on the run with the child but both sides seem determined to kill her and her ward.
This film got roundly harsh reviews when it came out in cinemas and it maintains an equally low rating on IMDb but, arrogant as I am, I thought it might be a piece of mindless fun. Well, I'm sad to say that my hope proved to have no founding in reality. It isn't that the film is really bad, because it isn't. It is more than it doesn't really follow through on anything or do anything that well and the result is a rather messy and inconsequential film that I really struggled to feel anything strong about whatsoever not a sense of fun, excitement, interesting or even hate.
The plot is the first obstacle to get over as it exists in a world that, as Violet first says, is hard to understand. On the surface it is a typical totalitarian state with disease and war at its core and thus surely would offer some potential for commentary on our modern society (OK maybe not V for Vendetta but perhaps something). Sadly no, nothing like that is to be found and instead the world is one of assumptions and half-baked ideas from other sources. This is a minor problem compared to my main issue with it though. Others have picked holes in the specifics but for me it all falls over because it simply takes itself too seriously. On one hand it is a comic book movie with excessive action and loads of (rather obvious) CGI but on the other we get loads of heavy moments that just clunk their way across the screen.
It could have gone either way and have been better for it. It could have been more fun and a bit less full of itself embracing the comic book style and making the CGI look part of the "unreal" effect rather than leaving them to stand out by looking a bit cheap, like they couldn't match everything else due to budget constraints. Conversely it could have gone more adult, properly explored the maternal theme and developed the characters beyond the one dimensional but then I guess that would have risked the teen action crowd. However by trying to do neither and both at the same time the end result is a bit messy. I could go on but I'll leave others to tell you about the clunky script, roundly flat acting and disjointed story but suffice to say they are correct nothing is really done well here.
Even the action, which surprised me. Some scenes offer excitement but mostly they are all overdone and full of too many baddies and an inability to keep the camera still for longer than a second to let us enjoy what we are seeing or feel close to it. The one scene I did think was well done was the conclusion; not brilliant because it still suffered from excess but the darkness and the 1-on-1 (as opposed to 700-on-1) did at least make me get into it a bit. Jovovich has a good body and is not a "bad" actress here but really she does offer little more than the basics. Any vague attempt she does make to find the person in her character is either misjudged or ignored and all we are left with is the sight of her in tight clothes killing people while looking sexy; perfect for the teenage boy market but those days are a decade or so behind me and I just felt bored. Bright is dull while I can only assume that Fichtner hoped for a franchise and took a role that would potentially give him an expansion potential in later films (yeah William, drop me a line and let me know how that's working out for ya). Chinlund at least has the good taste to furiously ham it up; maybe it is because he is a ham or maybe it was a decision but either way at least he has a bit of fun and his character never gets sucked into being dry and serious like the rest of the film (he's still not great though).
Overall, not as bad as some would have you believe but certainly no earthly good either. The approach is mixed and mostly fails to inspire, excite, engage or even interest. I would have liked to see it try to do something in particular be silly, be clever, be childish, be adult something. Hell, I might even have liked it if it had been such a shambles that it became fun to mock. As it is though it is just totally mediocre, boring, flat and uninspiring. Even teenage boys deserve better.
