The Bad Movie Squad Versus Uwe Boll

You cannot browse to a movie website without reading articles about German director Uwe Boll. The man is very prolific, which is kind of weird considering the fact that most of the movies he makes are considered to be, well, crap. Boll, who has made a career out of videogame adaptations, has been accused of slaughtering these franchises, using only the slightest elements of the original videogames and just using the names to attract an audience, which would otherwise have never gone to see what he pukes up on celluloid.
I've always been intrigued with what was written about Boll, cause there is not a single colleague of Boll who has had an equally huge amount of aggressive criticism levelled at him. I had not seen any of his movies yet, though, but that was about to change. The Bad Movie Squad, consisting of myself and fellow bad movie conaisseurs Onno, Martijn and Jeroen, decided to take on Dr. Boll and his crappy movies. We spent an evening with three of Boll's shitfests masterpieces, intent on finding out if these movies really are as bad as their reputation wants them to be, or if this was more a case of a mass hype spiralling out of control.

Movie 1: Blood Rayne

It was with just the slightest bit of worry that we loaded up the first movie in the DVD player. Blood Rayne is considered to be the best of Boll's three videogame adaptations. While House of the Dead gets a score of 2.0 at IMDB, and Alone at the Dark a slightly better 2.2, Blood Rayne is in a league of it's own with a strong 2.4 (remember, 2.4 out of TEN, not FIVE!). It's based on a videogame about a hot, female half vampire/half human who kills nazis. Sounds like a solid plotline to bring in the fanboys, which is probably why Boll decided to change it completely. Sure, the lead character is still there, and she is still half vampire, but instead of nazis she is killing other vampires, who are being led by an ugly uber vampire played by Ben Kingsley. Well, okay, I thought, this can still be fun, in a twisted way, and I was all ready to be convinced that Dr. Boll is in reality a misunderstood genius.

Well...

Since it's impossible to name everything that's wrong with this movie, let's concentrate on the good things.

Let's concentrate really hard.

Okay, let's stop concentrating, because it's not humanly possible to come up with anything redeeming this steaming turd of a movie. Some bad things then. Kristanna Loken, while reasonably hot, does not have what it takes to pull off the lead role. This is not so much a negative thing about Loken, since I don't think any actress could have done anything even resembling good with the material at hand. I liked Loken a lot in Terminator 3 (where she played the asskicking Terminatrix), but she looks completely lost in this movie. From the laughable fight scenes (did they even practice before shooting these?) to the clunky dialogue, this role must be a nightmare for any actress. There is a scene in which Loken scares a kid that is kinda fun (kid-scaring being a recurring theme in Boll's movies, it seems), and Loken is not too bad looking, but she practically killed her career by starring in this movie (which is probably why she is also in Boll's next movie, In the Name of the King).

--------------------
"You will either be rolling over the floor laughing, or desperately looking for the 'Stop' button on your remote. "
--------------------

There are some reputable actors in this movie, who all give their worst performance ever. Ben Kingsley sits in a chair throughout most of the movie, moving nothing but his lips, looking more like a Muppet than one of the best actors in the world. Michael Madsen looks like he is struggling to remember his lines (or maybe he is trying to forget them), taking up all sorts of poses that just scream "Uwe, just yell cut so I can go look for some beer and hookers". Michelle Rodriguez on the other hand is maybe a bit too active, giving the most annoying performance of her career, while Billy Zane and Meat Loaf just add another howler to careers already marred by incredibly bad choices.
The story of the movie seems pieced together with material cut out of other vampire/period/fantasy movies, and it all becomes so bad that, in a weird way, it became fun to watch again. Blood Rayne is definitely a great example of a 'so bad it's good' movie, and by the time you reach the end, where Boll gives us a montage of all the 'highlights' of the movie, you will either be rolling over the floor laughing, or desperately looking for the 'Stop' button on your remote.

Jeroen: Blood Rayne fits nicely in my secret collection of 'crappy fantasy B-movies which are so bad they become good again', like 'Deathstalker' and 'Barbarians'.
Onno: This movie really didn't deliver the kind of action you would expect from playing the videogame. Instead it's mostly a shallow gore-fest with mediocre effects.
Jeroen: I can't believe the 'special effects' in Blood Rayne. Sure, vampire movies should be bloody, but keeping the camera on a guy who get's his head split in two by a big, blunt sword just shows your audience how fake it all looks. It's like walking through a very, very cheap rip off of the London Dungeon (covered in extra tomato sauce).
Patrick: It seems that Dr. Boll has a thing for putting sticks through heads, since there are at least three scenes in which somebody gets a pointy stick through his head. Or... Pointy? Have a close look at the swords in this movie and you can see that they are all blunt! Were the actors so incompetent at their fighting training that the insurance company made them use blunt swords instead? Man, it looks like they used wooden swords with a lick of metal paint over them! Then again, you can also wonder if they had any fighting training at all.
Martijn: The only convincing killing done in Blood Rayne is that of the genre. If you really liked the game, it's best if you just stick to that instead.
Onno: Blood Rayne also shows us how an Oscar-winning actor like Ben Kingsley can look like a third-rate actor without a good script and solid direction. It seems that most of the cast had a good time filming Blood Rayne in Romania, but on film they only show the weariness of a hangover.
Patrick: Yeah, exactly how people watching this movie feel when it's over...
Martijn: Experience the emotion of laughing and crying at the same time!

Score: half a star for the unintentional comedy.

And we still had to watch two more of these?

Movie 2: Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark was next, and since this was rated even lower on IMDB, we expected pretty bad things from this movie. This, however, was the moment when the theory 'Uwe Boll sucks' loses steam. You see, for some weird reason, Alone in the Dark is not that bad at all. Although it starts by explaining the entire movie through title cards (which of course nobody reads, because they are deadly boring), it is actually followed by a pretty intense chase scene involving Christian Slater's character and a man taken over by some sort of alien entity. This was filmed quite well, and although I have seen plenty better chase scenes, it was still a whole lot better than what you expect in a movie from the acclaimed worst director in the world. And sadly for that statement, things didn't really get much worse after that.

Alone in the Dark turns out to be quite a competently made thriller, hampered by some wooden acting (and some horrible 'acting' from Tara Reid, who just stands around with her mouth and eyes wide open), a storyline that seems to forget it's heroes towards the end and an ending that had us wondering what on earth had just happened (I'd even go so far as to say that, if the final scene had made any sense at all, it could have been a pretty beautiful end to the movie, what with the images and the music blending together quite nicely). Then of course the heroes' actions are not always completely logical, and again the dialogue seems copied from other movies in the genre, added to which this movie again has little to do with the original game it was based on, save for the main hero and a vague notion of what it is he does. Still, it might have been a bad movie, it was at least a well made bad movie in a genre that has seen much worse examples. Two of the people present at this 'Boll Fest' even went so far as to say that they really enjoyed the movie, and even though I don't completely agree with that, this movie does make me wonder if Boll really is as bad as everybody says he is, or if his lack of respect for the wishes of the fans of the games he bases his movies on has made him the perfect target for an audience looking for heads to take aim at. Don't get me wrong, Uwe Boll does lack a few (dozen) of the things that make a good director, but it seems that his bad reputation has spiralled out of control.

Onno: This is a B-movie for sure, but I thought it was quite enjoyable all the way through. Never mind the storyline and the holes in it, just enjoy the special effects and - at times - the kick-ass action. Fans of Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff needn't worry. This movie is neither the best or the worst of their work. Just solid fun.
Martijn: Well, I thought the special effects are not bad at al, but Tara Reid's acting is!
Patrick: It's shocking, since at the beginning of the career she seemed to have at least potential. Imagine being labelled the worst thing in an Uwe Boll movie... What does that do for your career?
Jeroen: Alone in the Dark proved to me that Boll can make thrilling scenes, he just don't know how to keep a good flow in the overall story. 'Alone' needed a better story and more heroics of it's main character, then it would be a passable film.
Martijn: It's far from a groundbreaking horrormovie, but also not as bad as critics make it out te be, by a long shot. For what it's worth, Alone in the Dark is Boll's best movie I've ever seen!

Score: **

Luckily Sadly, we didn't have time for House of the Dead anymore, so it was time to weigh our opinions and decide whether or not Boll is as bad as his critics make him out to be.

Onno: He seems like a fun guy and very determined to get his movies on screen.
Patrick: You have to admire him for being able to keep making movies. Even with the critical mauling he has received he is still able to pull investors. You know, maybe everybody secretly wants to be Uwe Boll. Just make movies based on your videogames all day and just do it exactly the way you want. Sounds like a good job to me!
Onno: Judging from Alone in the Dark he is technically capable of bringing some quite impressive images on screen. If he would have a good script to work with and took more time in getting worthwhile performances from his actors, Uwe could very well make a movie with an IMDB-score above 6 one day.
Patrick: Yeah, maybe if he makes a trilogy and then combines those scores...
Martijn: Uwe Boll is one of the few directors that get remembered better than the movies he's directed...
Jeroen: I'm giving Boll one more chance with Dungeon Siege. I'm a big fantasy lover and will forgive some mistakes if the story is good and the pictures are pretty. However, if it looks like Lord of the Rings made out of paper mache, I'm done with Boll. Maybe he can make something out of Far Cry (I did love those Schwarzenegger movies like Commando and Predator after all), but I think Boll needs better writers, a better editor or someone who assists him with helpfull advice. Or maybe all it takes is a very good actor, who will make his movies shine, even if the director is not that good.
Patrick: Well, he has plenty of good actors for Dungeon Siege, like Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta and Jason Statham. Let's hope this time he is able to keep them away from the drugs and the booze and the hookers long enough for them to say their lines in a coherent and understandable way. The movie has his biggest budget and biggest names yet, so we can see if Boll can mess this one up as well, or if it was just due to the lack of real budget on his previous movies that the quality was so below par. I think that, if Boll would listen to the fans of the games he maims adapts, he might even be able to turn up with something not so crap.
Martijn: You know, Uwe Boll might be misunderstood, though he himself can't seem to understand he really has to stop making movies.

Stay tuned! For more articles on more bad movies!

Movie 1: Blood Rayne

It was with just the slightest bit of worry that we loaded up the first movie in the DVD player. Blood Rayne is considered to be the best of Boll's three videogame adaptations. While House of the Dead gets a score of 2.0 at IMDB, and Alone at the Dark a slightly better 2.2, Blood Rayne is in a league of it's own with a strong 2.4 (remember, 2.4 out of TEN, not FIVE!). It's based on a videogame about a hot, female half vampire/half human who kills nazis. Sounds like a solid plotline to bring in the fanboys, which is probably why Boll decided to change it completely. Sure, the lead character is still there, and she is still half vampire, but instead of nazis she is killing other vampires, who are being led by an ugly uber vampire played by Ben Kingsley. Well, okay, I thought, this can still be fun, in a twisted way, and I was all ready to be convinced that Dr. Boll is in reality a misunderstood genius.

Well...

Since it's impossible to name everything that's wrong with this movie, let's concentrate on the good things.

Let's concentrate really hard.

Okay, let's stop concentrating, because it's not humanly possible to come up with anything redeeming this steaming turd of a movie. Some bad things then. Kristanna Loken, while reasonably hot, does not have what it takes to pull off the lead role. This is not so much a negative thing about Loken, since I don't think any actress could have done anything even resembling good with the material at hand. I liked Loken a lot in Terminator 3 (where she played the asskicking Terminatrix), but she looks completely lost in this movie. From the laughable fight scenes (did they even practice before shooting these?) to the clunky dialogue, this role must be a nightmare for any actress. There is a scene in which Loken scares a kid that is kinda fun (kid-scaring being a recurring theme in Boll's movies, it seems), and Loken is not too bad looking, but she practically killed her career by starring in this movie (which is probably why she is also in Boll's next movie, In the Name of the King).

--------------------
"You will either be rolling over the floor laughing, or desperately looking for the 'Stop' button on your remote. "
--------------------

There are some reputable actors in this movie, who all give their worst performance ever. Ben Kingsley sits in a chair throughout most of the movie, moving nothing but his lips, looking more like a Muppet than one of the best actors in the world. Michael Madsen looks like he is struggling to remember his lines (or maybe he is trying to forget them), taking up all sorts of poses that just scream "Uwe, just yell cut so I can go look for some beer and hookers". Michelle Rodriguez on the other hand is maybe a bit too active, giving the most annoying performance of her career, while Billy Zane and Meat Loaf just add another howler to careers already marred by incredibly bad choices.
The story of the movie seems pieced together with material cut out of other vampire/period/fantasy movies, and it all becomes so bad that, in a weird way, it became fun to watch again. Blood Rayne is definitely a great example of a 'so bad it's good' movie, and by the time you reach the end, where Boll gives us a montage of all the 'highlights' of the movie, you will either be rolling over the floor laughing, or desperately looking for the 'Stop' button on your remote.

Jeroen: Blood Rayne fits nicely in my secret collection of 'crappy fantasy B-movies which are so bad they become good again', like 'Deathstalker' and 'Barbarians'.
Onno: This movie really didn't deliver the kind of action you would expect from playing the videogame. Instead it's mostly a shallow gore-fest with mediocre effects.
Jeroen: I can't believe the 'special effects' in Blood Rayne. Sure, vampire movies should be bloody, but keeping the camera on a guy who get's his head split in two by a big, blunt sword just shows your audience how fake it all looks. It's like walking through a very, very cheap rip off of the London Dungeon (covered in extra tomato sauce).
Patrick: It seems that Dr. Boll has a thing for putting sticks through heads, since there are at least three scenes in which somebody gets a pointy stick through his head. Or... Pointy? Have a close look at the swords in this movie and you can see that they are all blunt! Were the actors so incompetent at their fighting training that the insurance company made them use blunt swords instead? Man, it looks like they used wooden swords with a lick of metal paint over them! Then again, you can also wonder if they had any fighting training at all.
Martijn: The only convincing killing done in Blood Rayne is that of the genre. If you really liked the game, it's best if you just stick to that instead.
Onno: Blood Rayne also shows us how an Oscar-winning actor like Ben Kingsley can look like a third-rate actor without a good script and solid direction. It seems that most of the cast had a good time filming Blood Rayne in Romania, but on film they only show the weariness of a hangover.
Patrick: Yeah, exactly how people watching this movie feel when it's over...
Martijn: Experience the emotion of laughing and crying at the same time!

Score: half a star for the unintentional comedy.

And we still had to watch two more of these?

Movie 2: Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark was next, and since this was rated even lower on IMDB, we expected pretty bad things from this movie. This, however, was the moment when the theory 'Uwe Boll sucks' loses steam. You see, for some weird reason, Alone in the Dark is not that bad at all. Although it starts by explaining the entire movie through title cards (which of course nobody reads, because they are deadly boring), it is actually followed by a pretty intense chase scene involving Christian Slater's character and a man taken over by some sort of alien entity. This was filmed quite well, and although I have seen plenty better chase scenes, it was still a whole lot better than what you expect in a movie from the acclaimed worst director in the world. And sadly for that statement, things didn't really get much worse after that.

Alone in the Dark turns out to be quite a competently made thriller, hampered by some wooden acting (and some horrible 'acting' from Tara Reid, who just stands around with her mouth and eyes wide open), a storyline that seems to forget it's heroes towards the end and an ending that had us wondering what on earth had just happened (I'd even go so far as to say that, if the final scene had made any sense at all, it could have been a pretty beautiful end to the movie, what with the images and the music blending together quite nicely). Then of course the heroes' actions are not always completely logical, and again the dialogue seems copied from other movies in the genre, added to which this movie again has little to do with the original game it was based on, save for the main hero and a vague notion of what it is he does. Still, it might have been a bad movie, it was at least a well made bad movie in a genre that has seen much worse examples. Two of the people present at this 'Boll Fest' even went so far as to say that they really enjoyed the movie, and even though I don't completely agree with that, this movie does make me wonder if Boll really is as bad as everybody says he is, or if his lack of respect for the wishes of the fans of the games he bases his movies on has made him the perfect target for an audience looking for heads to take aim at. Don't get me wrong, Uwe Boll does lack a few (dozen) of the things that make a good director, but it seems that his bad reputation has spiralled out of control.

Onno: This is a B-movie for sure, but I thought it was quite enjoyable all the way through. Never mind the storyline and the holes in it, just enjoy the special effects and - at times - the kick-ass action. Fans of Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff needn't worry. This movie is neither the best or the worst of their work. Just solid fun.
Martijn: Well, I thought the special effects are not bad at al, but Tara Reid's acting is!
Patrick: It's shocking, since at the beginning of the career she seemed to have at least potential. Imagine being labelled the worst thing in an Uwe Boll movie... What does that do for your career?
Jeroen: Alone in the Dark proved to me that Boll can make thrilling scenes, he just don't know how to keep a good flow in the overall story. 'Alone' needed a better story and more heroics of it's main character, then it would be a passable film.
Martijn: It's far from a groundbreaking horrormovie, but also not as bad as critics make it out te be, by a long shot. For what it's worth, Alone in the Dark is Boll's best movie I've ever seen!

Score: **

Luckily Sadly, we didn't have time for House of the Dead anymore, so it was time to weigh our opinions and decide whether or not Boll is as bad as his critics make him out to be.

Onno: He seems like a fun guy and very determined to get his movies on screen.
Patrick: You have to admire him for being able to keep making movies. Even with the critical mauling he has received he is still able to pull investors. You know, maybe everybody secretly wants to be Uwe Boll. Just make movies based on your videogames all day and just do it exactly the way you want. Sounds like a good job to me!
Onno: Judging from Alone in the Dark he is technically capable of bringing some quite impressive images on screen. If he would have a good script to work with and took more time in getting worthwhile performances from his actors, Uwe could very well make a movie with an IMDB-score above 6 one day.
Patrick: Yeah, maybe if he makes a trilogy and then combines those scores...
Martijn: Uwe Boll is one of the few directors that get remembered better than the movies he's directed...
Jeroen: I'm giving Boll one more chance with Dungeon Siege. I'm a big fantasy lover and will forgive some mistakes if the story is good and the pictures are pretty. However, if it looks like Lord of the Rings made out of paper mache, I'm done with Boll. Maybe he can make something out of Far Cry (I did love those Schwarzenegger movies like Commando and Predator after all), but I think Boll needs better writers, a better editor or someone who assists him with helpfull advice. Or maybe all it takes is a very good actor, who will make his movies shine, even if the director is not that good.
Patrick: Well, he has plenty of good actors for Dungeon Siege, like Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta and Jason Statham. Let's hope this time he is able to keep them away from the drugs and the booze and the hookers long enough for them to say their lines in a coherent and understandable way. The movie has his biggest budget and biggest names yet, so we can see if Boll can mess this one up as well, or if it was just due to the lack of real budget on his previous movies that the quality was so below par. I think that, if Boll would listen to the fans of the games he maims adapts, he might even be able to turn up with something not so crap.
Martijn: You know, Uwe Boll might be misunderstood, though he himself can't seem to understand he really has to stop making movies.

Stay tuned! For more articles on more bad movies!

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