Movie Review: Bloodrayne - The Third Reich (2010)

Uwe Boll is one of the most despised filmmakers in the business. People hate him for a variety of different reasons. Some hate him because he pretty much churns out nothing but garbage films. Others hate him because those garbage films are often media tie-ins on video games that could have had far better treatments. And then there are those, like myself, who hate him because, damn it, the guy is still making movies, and will probably continue to have a productive career for at least the next decade.

Despised or not, Boll isn't stupid. By now he's got his film-making down to a science, and he appears, as best as I can tell, to have a process that works and will continue to work. Looking at his IMDb.com page, he's got plenty of movies coming out, and I doubt those will be the last any time soon. Not to mention that, when push comes to shove (literally), Boll can defend his films with his fists - he challenged any film critic who panned one of his movies to a boxing match, and he beat every one of them (and turned it into a movie, of course).

I haven't seen all, or even most, of Boll's films. I did see his shooting-spree film Rampage, which was, I have to say, actually pretty good. Maybe not a great film, but given his resources and compared to some of his other films, Boll did a solid job on this movie. It was grim, disturbing, and the ending was actually somewhat surprising - I had completely underestimated him for the first half of the movie.

So back to Bloodrayne. I haven't seen the first two films, but the original had a surprising cast turnout, with Ben Kingsley, Billy Zane, Kristanna Loken, Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Madsen...it's funny, but Boll has a way of drawing fairly decent talent into some of his films. No doubt it's because hey, actors gotta eat, right? But regardless, it shows schrewdness on Boll's part to be able to nab a Name when he can (Jason Statham was in his Dungeon Siege film, as well as Ray Liotta, John Rhys-Davies, Ron Pearlman...).

Unfortunately for Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, the closest thing Boll gets to a "Name" is Clint Howard, who's apparently friends with Boll and who appears in several of his films. This third installment of the media tie-in franchise pits the bisexual half-vampire Rayne against - duh, look at the title - Nazis. And not just Nazis, vampire Nazis.

Early on in the film, Rayne attacks a train carrying Jewish prisoners bound for a concentration camp, just as a band of partisans attacks the same train, thinking it is carrying weapons and munitions (they are actually pissed that it's only carrying suffering human beings...) During the battle, Rayne bites a Nazi officer and thinks she's killed him off, but instead he lives, and turns into a vampire.

Clint Howard's character, Doctor Mangler, is your stereotypical Nazi mad scientist, and he is fascinated by vampirism (we first meet him while he's vivisecting a captured vampire), and when Rayne is brought to his attention - a half-vampire who possesses all of the creature's strengths, but none of their weaknesses - Mangler believes that capturing Rayne and draining her of her blood, then giving that blood to Adolf Hitler, will transform him into an immortal and allow him to rule the world forever (bomm bomm BOMMMM). Maybe Dr. Mangler should look into a cure for wanting to fight a land war in Asia instead...

Meanwhile, Rayne decides what she really needs is a massage. No, seriously. She visits a bordello and gets massaged, then beats up some Nazi soldier who's mishandling one of the whores. Her reward? Full-on lesbian gratitude sex. Isn't being a Nazi-hunting half-vampire bisexual great?

I can't bear to follow the plot much longer. Suffice to say, Rayne continues to team up with the partisans (and has sex with their leader, just to reinforce, you know, the bisexuality thing). She runs around dodging gunfire and chops up a ton of Nazis with her swords while the partisans riddle Nazis with bullets. But a bunch of partisans get killed along the way cuz - hey, war is hell! In the end (SPOILER ALERT) the bad guys get their comeuppance, and Rayne continues to go on, wasting Nazis by the score.

This film ends with what is probably one of my favorite final lines of all time - well okay,of this movie: "Guten Tag, Motherfuckers!" Although since she says it at night, that should really be Guten Abend. Thanks, high school German!

Whatever. It's kinda awesome. Shut your mouth and just click play. Actually, have three shots of cheap whiskey first, then click play. And keep the bottle handy...