Rise: Blood Hunter
Supposedly this was an "experimental" movie for Lucy Liu and has a cult following.Ever sat through a movie, watched the whole thing, and felt like you missed entire parts of the movie somehow? Yes? Ok, so you've seen this one.
The movie stars Lucy Liu as Sadie Blake, a semi-credible reporter turned vampire. While investigating lame goth 'cults' she stumbles across a girl who refuses to say anything except a number. The number doesn't appear to mean anything, but then Sadie's lame excuse for a hacker friend does some hacker-internet-voodoo-crap (translation: made up bullshit) and discovers a secret message encoded in a series of meaningless websites. Because you couldn't make whatever spooky, angst-filled message you wanted if you followed enough crappy goth websites. Whatever. The hacker attempts to explain how he found this message to which Sadie basically says "I have a vagina, therefor I don't understand computers. Please put this in terms an AOL users could digest." Long story short, the message leads to an address and upon going there the main character stumbles across a group of vampires. The leader, Bishop, feeds off of her and she's supposed to die, but she doesn't. She wakes up 3 days later as a vampire with a thirst for revenge (oh, and blood).
"Mmmm... braaaains-er... bloooood...."The first thing that annoyed me about this movie is the constant flashbacks and forwards and sideways. I understand the point of flashbacks. I get why stories sometimes choose to leave out information and give it to you at a certain time. I do not, however, understand the point of so many changes in the time of the story that you get confused in the actual time line of events. After piecing things together in my mind, I realized it's just a way to confuse the viewer into not realizing a few obvious plot holes. Matter of a fact, there are so many plot holes it's annoying.
So, our 'hero' reawakens in a morgue. Somehow she steals some scrubs and exits the morgue without anyone noticing. I'm pretty sure they keep a tight watch on this stuff, but I've never had to escape a morgue, so what do I know? She finds herself at what looks like a homeless shelter and feeds on some sick, old dude then calls her Mom to say "take care of yourself" thus giving her Mother false hopes that her daughter is still alive. Next, she jumps off a bridge in an attempt to kill her undead self. She is found, somehow, by another group of vampires run by someone named Arturo. He nurses her back to health and encourages her to go after Bishop in revenge. He explains the chain of command under Bishop and instructs her to take them out one by one, starting at the bottom, because she won't be able to go straight to Bishop for some reason. During the rest of the movie, I see no reason why this is true because for the most part all the vampires seem to do their own thing. I assume that while here she also got weapons and martial arts training ala typical Hollywood style also known as a montage. But no, we aren't show any of that. Somehow she just learns. Not to say she's a great fighter in the movie or anything, but the woman was a freaking reporter and now she's kicking ass? Mmmmk. Oh, and he gives her a mini crossbow because apparently that's the only way to kill these guys, but that's never really explained to us.
Is that a real crossbow or a marshmallow shooter?Fast forward who knows how much time and we see Sadie buys a hooker at a bar and takes her to a mansion to be food for some old dude in a wheelchair. This is actually where the movie starts, which is really confusing by the way. There are a few things here that don't make sense. She supposedly struck a deal with this guy that if she brought him a nice warm meal he would tell her the location of one of the vampires she is looking for. OK, hold on a second.
1) Why is he in a wheelchair? We are told that the vampires tissue regenerates rapidly, could he not heal himself?
2) Why is he giving out life-or-death information for one meal? He lives in a mansion, he's got money. Why doesn't he buy women himself or hire someone? Why trust this other vampire chick that shows up?
3) Before she kills him he tells her that his body is just a shell, and "inside I'm still your superior" what is he talking about? She kills him anyway, and nothing comes of it. Way to toss out information just to confuse us! We're never really told who this guy is that he feels so special.
From here she goes about killing up the chain of command, but it's all so poorly developed I feel like I'm not cheering her on so much as still trying to figure out the many holes in the story. Some of the things that urked me:
Why didn't Sadie Die? The second in command, Eve, was present when Sadie was Bishop's meal that night and he shared with Eve. Eve says that Sadie just refused to die, so she decided that she must have wanted to be a vampire. Eve tells us that there are several phases to turn someone, and only a few vampires know them. Eve started the process, but says that Sadie somehow finished the process on her own. We're not told what these various steps are or how she somehow performed them herself while clinically dead. I suppose the idea could be that Sadie is supposed to be some kind of chosen hero or something, but this is never developed. At the end of the movie Sadie asks a cop to stake her and kill her, but she again comes back. We're never told why. Sadie also pretends to be Eve at one point, but there doesn't seem to be a reason for this either.
Why does Sadie ask the cop to kill her? Because she can't bear the thought of killing another human to feed. OK, so why kill them? Knock them out and have a snack. No big deal. Nope, she kills them. Also, when they kill they use a little knife thing to cut their neck and then they get so much blood everywhere you wonder what was left to actually eat. They make such a mess you can't help but wonder how they clean it up. Sadie even kills a guy in her car and gets blood ALL OVER the inside of her car and down her body, but it magically disappears. The other vampires seem to favor feeding in bed (did I mention they also rape their victims?) and there is so much blood they would have to replace the mattress every time. One guy is found with a victim in a hotel room. How would you cover that up? "Oh hey... I got a paper cut and bled all over the mattress and the walls. Sorry about that."
This after dinner cleanup involves way more than a dishwasherAnother thing that bothers me. Throughout the movie Sadie tosses around money to get information, stay at a hotel or buy hooker treats. She tosses it around like it grows on trees. Where did she get this money? She can't access her money from when she was alive. I hate vampire movies that depict them as rich but never says how they got their money. It certainly wasn't from a "day job".
While killing her way up to Bishop (which I've already determined was pointless and she should have gone for him in the first place) her tactic is as follows. Point crossbow at them, demand information, get information, kill them anyway. The vampires know someone is killing them off with crossbow bolts, working their way up the ladder. So why the hell are they so eager to give out information on who she should kill next? They should know it won't stop her from killing them, so what's the point? But no, she points a little dinky crossbow at them and they suddenly get information diarrhea of the mouth. The only exception to this is Eve, who actually sits down and has a long conversation with Sadie even though she knows she's just going to get a bolt to the chest. None of the vampires fight back except for Bishop. Matter of a fact, the humans kick Sadie's ass more than the vampires do. She even got her ass kicked by an old Asian human WHO SHE SNUCK UP ON.
Lastly, they never really tell us what powers are given to vampires. They toss us tid bits of info now and then but you never really get the full picture. Sadie says se can't go out in the sun even though after she was turned she did go out in the sun, but just found the sunlight unpleasant and stole some sunglasses. She also says she has heightened smell and we are told her tissue regenerates quickly but it's never really shown. No before and afters. She appears to be somewhat strong, but we can't see for certain. No tossing people across the room or anything like that. No mention of the effect of garlic or crosses, or what happens if they don't feed, or any special powers over the living such as compulsion. They also have no fangs, also not addressed, which is why they use a small knife. They still pee and drink, they get thirsty for water, but can't eat food. They do, however, lack a reflection which seems odd considering many of the standard vampire traits are lacking or watered down. None of the vampires ever tell us about their powers or weaknesses. We are left to figure them out as we go along. For the most part, they seem like humans. They just don't die easily and drink blood.
There were also constant references to how hot Sadie is. Male characters are constantly telling her she's pretty, or feeling her up while she's unconscious, or she's telling them she knows they are horny (she knows this because of the heightened sense of smell). Not to mention she's constantly getting naked. Seriously. I can see Lucy Liu is pretty, I really don't need it shoved in my face all the time. Is that all this movie was about? But then at other parts, like where she is feeding for the first time, it was actually really gritty. She didn't look pretty, she looked anguished and manic. Come to think of it, that was actually probably the best part of the movie.
Did I mention Lucy Liu's acting was about as illuminating as a black hole? There were minor characters far more interesting than her own. If she had played the character more like her part in Kill Bill (which I hated, but I liked that character) it would have worked so much better. Instead she just kind of... gives up or something and drifts through the movie. Except the hobo eating. That she seemed geared up for.
Mmmm hobo... that's worth good actingTo sum it up, this movie left me feeling as empty as the gaping canyons known as plot holes. I felt like there was potential to be better, but the focus wasn't there. It could have been interesting to show more human-like vampires, but since their powers and weaknesses are not explained to us we never really figure out what their limits are. I didn't sympathies with the main character, and the "Boo hoo I don't want to eat humans" thing is just way overplayed so it wasn't enough for me. I think it could make inspiration for something better, but on it's own it's as holy as swiss cheese. 2 out of 5
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