Mark Waters brings to the big screen the first of the popular Richelle Mead vampire books about a teenage vampire guardian and her princess vampire best friend.
Set in St. Vladimir’s Academy is the story of 17-year-old guardian-in-training Rose Hathaway, and her best friend Princess Lissa Dragomir. From being on the run following a tragic car accident, getting taken back to school to uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the life of the Princess, this film struggles to balance the very many elements it has taken from similar franchises.
Zoey Deutch is the best thing in a film where the acting goes from weird to woeful. Lucy Fry is unimpressive as the Princess and the bland supporting cast blend together in dull mesh of Twilight wannabes. The cameos are just bizarre, with Olga Kurylenko, Gabriel Byrne and Joely Richardson delivering performances larger than the film itself, which, if the film was larger, would probably have worked just fine.
The premise itself seems to be a very uncomfortable hodgepodge of Twilight, Harry Potter and will struggle to satisfy either audiences. The production values feels more suited for TV than cinema, failing to live up to the standards set by shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and even Charmed. As well as the CGI being terrible (the wolves are particularly embarrassing), the leaps in both plot and tone is completely jarring, giving the impression whole scenes were either left on the cutting room floor or just weren’t filmed to begin with. That the film makers brazenly tried to set up the sequel at the end shows they were more interesting in making a quick buck from a cheap new franchise than they were in making a decent film.
Taking the best element from more successful franchises and turning them into a juddering mess, quite frankly this film sucks.
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