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.
