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USD $1 ā‚± 56.28 0.0000 March 27, 2024
March 26, 2024
2D Lotto 5PM
2514
ā‚± 4,000.00
2D Lotto 9PM
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Collected Backstory

'Vampire Academy' is undoubtedly better on the page, where the story has room to breathe. One doesn't get much of a sense of flavor or subtext in this movie, which tends to be what makes Young Adult fiction so interesting.

This movie version of the popular YA series Vampire Academy sounds like a great idea on paper. The appeal comes from hiring the Waters brothers to write and direct the film. The two feel like a good fit for the material, the iconic teen girl movies Heathers and Mean Girls in their collective filmography. Their involvement promised a sharp take on the high school experience, the macabre elements of the story only adding to the potential appeal. But this film doesn’t get much out of the brothers, as it commits too much of its time explaining the tangled back story of the series.

There are three kinds of vampires. There are the magic-wielding Moroi, their guardians the half-human Dhampir and the evil Strigoi. Two years ago, feeling unsafe following the death of her family, Moroi royalty Lissa (Lucy Fry) and her Dhampir guardian Rose (Zoey Deutch) ran away from St. Vladimir's Academy. Now, they have been found and forcibly brought back to the Vampire Academy. The pair's return is met with plenty of hostility from their classmates. But beyond the typical high school drama lies a sinister plot to take control of Lissa's hidden magical powers.

The movie has so much backstory to get through that the plot becomes secondary. The film ends up explaining so much that it struggles to get to the meat of its story. This is par for the course for any first installment of a series, but this film feels extra thin. There just isn't enough time to explore the relationship between Rose and Lissa, or to reflect on the consequences of any given event. The film bounces from one spot of exposition to another, cramming volumes of history and mythology into a really cramped package.

And while the need for setup is understandable, that doesn't make it a good film. It feels like a long, rushed lecture. It dumps a ton of information while failing to provide the narrative flavor to make it interesting. The best moments are the ones that need the least explaining: the complex politics of high school. Here, the Waters brothers are able to show off the experience in the genre, arming the characters with an arsenal of clever barbs. But as with everything else, the film has to rush through all of it, never lingering long enough to really enjoy a well delivered line.

It's a shame because there are so many of them. In the lead role, Zoey Deutch possesses an easy charm. She handles the immediacy of the dialogue fairly well, managing to add some shades of the character to all that exposition. One gets the sense that Deutch has a bright future ahead of her. Lucy Fry is all right as well. Gabriel Byrne is around to do what he does best: being oddly charming while still harboring a sense of real menace.

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Vampire Academy is undoubtedly better on the page, where the story has room to breathe. One doesn't get much of a sense of flavor or subtext in this movie, which tends to be what makes Young Adult fiction so interesting. All it can really deliver is the lore, and while that's kind of important, the story really should come first. Maybe the later chapters will be better, but this first one offers very few reasons to look forward to anything more.

My Rating:

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