Horror/Sci-Fi, 87 Minutes, 2011
Apocalyptic wastelands, vampires and related monsters, bad-ass futuristic motorcycles and ass-kicking ninja priests. Yeah; I like this movie.
Just about any criticism you might want to level is probably valid. It was a little vapid. The whole wild-west vibe never really gelled completely and the character interactions were kind of stilted. But still – ass-kicking ninja priests!
I really love Paul Bettany in just about everything. Karl Urban is also consistently underrated and makes a fine turn as a villain here. Maggie O, on the other hand, is underused as a generic hot-girl-ass-kicker.
The world they built was interesting, but the construction was a little heavy-handed. Rather than explain things organically in the story we get a heavily narrated, animated introduction. It did get the exposition out-of-the-way, but set an odd tone.
Yes, the movie’s superficial and unabashedly pop-corn but that’s just fine. They stopped making “Blade” movies after all: somebody has to step-up! Lord knows there’s enough sparkly, smoldering vampire dry-humping littering the screens – somebody has to kick some vampire ass!
Nice review. I had no interest in it before, but I might check it out now.