Tuesday 10 June 2014

Movie Review: Vampire Academy

Vampire Academy (2014) Poster





I am one of the biggest Vampire Academy fans out there I think. I have been in love with the whole series since about 2009? I honestly don't remember exactly when I first read the book but I remember crying and laughing and loving this whole world. I even remember finishing the very last page of the last book and crying my eyes out.

Anyway. I wasn't at all happy that a movie was being made, first off all there are far too many books in the series; second of all there is too much going on in each of the books to be squished into a 104 minute long film.
There were things that were okay during the movie but I didn't enjoy it. I never expected to enjoy the movie. It was okay...

The Actors 
I'm sure individually they are all great actors and have done fantastic things. But seriously. I would never have pictured Lucy Fry as Lissa; not in a million years, her adaptation of the princess was so bland and rather boring. I have never even heard of Danila Kozlovsky who played the handsome Dimitri Belikov. Again his acting and portrayal of the hot teacher was nothing like I pictured. First of all I think Danila was a poor choice as he doesn't exactly look like the character, not only that but he seemed to have a stick up his crap hole most of the movie. I know that Dimitri is all serious and business but in the books we get to see him be fun and not at all boring! The only person that I think was able to capture the character was Dominic Sherwood who played Christian Ozera. I don't know if it was because he wasn't in the movie that much or if he was the only actor who looked up what the character was like.

And don't even get me started on how they interacted with each other. This was meant to be a film not a high school play gone terribly wrong.

The Comedy
Mark Waters who produced Mean Girls, Freaky Friday ect was in charge of this movie. As much as I love comedies, making VA one was the biggest mistake that could have possibly been done. The story is about friendship, and family and an ancient race of vampires not about who can make the most jokes in a minute. Rose's character was the worst. I have never seen a worst adaptation of a character! In the books Rose is a funny, sometimes arrogant girl who puts her bestfriend before anything! Whereas in the movie she's an annoying teenage girl who just wants to crack wise jokes and try to make fun of literally everything! I still cannot believe that this was made into a comedy! It's insane.

The whole vampire business
Ever since Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood made everyone sick of vampires (not me) I think the producers and writers of this movie tried to take a comedy spin on the whole vampire things. AGAIN. A BAD MISTAKE. At the beginning Rose mentions Twilight and how Moroi don't sparkle. That wasn't at all necessary, not mentioning it would have actually made the movie slightly better.

The voice over
As I mentioned before, a lot of things happen in the books. There are also people that are stupid enough that go and see the movie without reading the books (and yes I am being a hypocrite as I have seen a movie without reading the book first before) Therefore a lot of things needed to be explained in a short amount of time. Was it done in a short amount of time? Yes. Was it explained? No. I have read the book. I love the book. I know the bloody book. AND SOMEHOW I WAS CONFUSED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE!! The voice over that was meant to explain the academy, and what happened did nothing but confuse. I'm not even going to mention the random jump cuts.

They suck
Yup. Okay. It's a vampire thing I get it, they suck at school. Yup vampire thing. Yup. However! For someone like me who just so happens to have a very dirty mind the first thing that comes to mind isn't the vampire thing. IT'S SOMETHING ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT! DO YOU SEE MY POINT?!?!?!?!?

The romance
For those of you who have seen the movie you might be screaming at your screens *Paulina what do you mean the romance? There was no romance* and you will be totally right! The whole point of Dimitri and Rose training was so that they could fall in love! The whole point of Christian and Lissa being up in the church was so that they could fall in love!!!! The only part where you could sort of see that Dimitri wanted Rose was while she was wearing the charmed necklace which just so happened not to be a rose... The whole point of the charm was that it would only work if both of the people were already crushing on each other. Their relationship did nothing, it was just training and oops I'm on top of you randomly.
At least if everything was screwed up but the main part of the story was there I could have been happy but no. Everything had to be turned to poop.


And on this note I will leave it. The film was okay at some bits, about 20 minutes of the film but apart from that I wish it was never turned into a movie. The books were perfect and didn't need to be ruined like this.








15 comments:

  1. You know what? i have not read the book but i woched the movie and i kinda liked it! true there was Jasna to explain some things to me, but i don't remember it as a horrible experience! im rilly sorry you didn't enjoyed it but look at the bright site - there wont be any sequels! :)
    Boyana @The Bookmaidens

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  2. Hahahaha! Thanks for the laughs, Paulina. I definitely agree with a huge chunk of your review. The movie was actually so bad it was funny. For me, at least. I kinda laughed at how butchered up the movie was (the scene where Rose punched Mia made me crack up so hard--it looked so fake). Anyway, I did like Christian, too! :)

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  3. Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! It was so fun to write

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  4. You need to read the books! It's probably why you liked it :-)

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  5. I still need to read these books, so I'm glad I skipped watching the movie. It was interesting though to read your thoughts on what they changed - it's too bad this was such a disappointment! It probably would have been better if they made these books into a TV series!

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  6. I did think that at one point but then again I think Vampire Diaries was screwed up by being a tv show. I think they should have just left it alone

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  7. I watched it with my fiance who has NOT read the books and he liked the movie a lot more than I did. I agree with your review 100%. The movie was like a big ol' summary. I also couldn't get over how they portrayed compulsion... it drove me insane!

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  8. OMG....You totally got what I felt for this movie in perfect words!!! I completely agree with you on everything. The actors were horrible renditions of the characters, there was no plot, the romance was pretty much ridiculous and the humour was just overall sh*tty. WTF!!!?? That was my reaction after watching this movie. :( And like you, I am a HUGE fan of this series, especially since the VA series is what essentially started my passion for reading. I was soooo disappointed in this movie, but especially Dimitri. Who the hell is that guy anyway!?? He totally murdered the image I had of Dimitri in my head. And Lissa actor just pissed me off. I'm being mean...but seriously her acting annoyed me. It looked sooo fake. If that makes any sense?? Anyway, I'm rambling and I have like a million things to say about this movie. Sorry this was a disappoint for you as well. Fabulous, honest review, Paulina! :D


    New Follower! xxx

    ~ Maida
    Literary Love Affair

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  9. I love your rambling!! UGH I KNOW RIGHT?! DIMITIRI WAS NOTHING LIKE I PICTURED HIM OVER THE YEARS!!!! I don't want to say that the actor is erm not attractive because that's mean but I don't think he's attractive enough to play D!!

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  10. Actually I kind of liked the compulsion bit. I think it might have been one of the only things I liked. Basically if someone wants to enjoy the movie they can't read the books :/

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  11. I still haven't read the books, something I intent to do (hopefully this year!!) but I will be keeping well away from the movie... As it is it sounds like a movie I wouldn't go watch in the cinema and as a movie adaptation it seems to fail even more!
    Sorry it disappointed you so much!!

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  12. You might want to watch the movie before reading the books. BUT YOU NEED TO READ THE BOOKS!!! AND TELL YOU'VE READ THE BOOKS!!!!

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  13. Yup, no worries! I'll let you know once I'm starting the series!!

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  14. This makes me really sad.I knew that this movie is not going to do justice for the book at all as soon as I saw the trailer.But I didn't expect it to be this worse.Thank God I didn't go and watch this,or I would have cried.
    I hope they'll find someone suitable for Adrian in the next movie.Or I'll personally go and kill these people.

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  15. I don't think there will be a second movie :/ I couldn't find anything !

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