MOVIES | I heard rumours about a
Castlevania live action movie being made, several years ago. Already in late 2005 a film company acquired the rights to adapt the
video game series into a feature film with an estimated budget of $50 million and
Paul W.S. Anderson hired for writing and directing. As more distribution companies got involved in the project, differences regarding the script arose, which postponed the production. In 2007 the final budget was still not settled. Anderson then got busy with other movie projects (
Death Race), the 2008 Hollywood writers' strike happened, and production was again postponed to 2010, according to producer
Jeremy Butthead (lol). Paul Anderson also got replaced by
James Wan, set to (re-) write and direct the the movie.
Watch the first 8 minutes of the Castlevania "movie"
As you probably realised, this mess of a production just looks more and more like the
Duke Nukem Forever of movies for every day that passes. And while the wait is long, it may not even be worth waiting for in the first place. Gaming network
Machinima therefore took the initiative to publish this
8 minute footage of what the beginning of a live action
Castlevania movie could look like:
My impression
 |
| I jutht wen to 'e dentift'th... |
So, in these initial 8 minutes of the movie, we get to see a
lisping female vampire breaking necks, feeding from a few unsuspecting victims who don't even seem to bother making any resistance. Like they didn't give a rat's ass their lives were literally running out of their throats. The vampire herself seems to have gotten her
tongue pierced the minute earlier. Either that, or she just had a root canal treatment at the
dentist's. I know it's supposed to be
Transylvania, but I'd be surprised if all Romanians actually spoke like their tongues had
fallen asleep.
 |
| ...then I ha my tongue piertht |
And then enters Mr.
Belmont, looking like he was just strolling around in the garden in the middle of the night. No fancy entrance here. But finally time for some action, you may think... Well, think again, because what does he actually do as he sees a vampire holding on to a girl
bleeding to death? Does he go whipping? Chasing off the vampire? Saving the girl?
No, instead he just stands there, doing his
Keanu Reeves impression, talking to that wretched vampire in some suspended, theatrical manner. And it just goes on and on.
Just kill the freaking vampire already, Belmont!!
 |
Hi, I'm Keanu Reeves, you might remember me from films
like Speed, Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Matrix...
But hopefully not this one. |
And then eventually, he splashes some holy water on the vampire, and the battle is finally on. Problem is, even
that is slow. As soon as something happens it just has to be shown in
slow motion in this movie, apparently. As
Simon Belmont finally brings out his whip, the vampire turns into thin air, and then we're back with some more tedious close-up footage of Belmont carefully rolling up his whip, and reading the
Bible for a bit.
T-h-e-n he turns to the poor girl bitten by the vampire. Once again in his senseless, devil-may-care fashion, he tells her she's pretty fxxxed and that he'll come back to
kill her once she starts transforming. The girl doesn't seem too bothered over the fact she's dying either, just sitting there, completely calm and self-contained.
 |
I'm dying/transforming/getting killed...
- Oki doki. |
One should hope that at least the
acting will be upped a few notches in the real feature film, when or
if we'll see that in theatres (or in the
straight-to-video bargain bins perhaps, rather...). The
visuals aren't that bad though, especially for a budget B-flick. Slow cutting and lacking action sequences are also understandable in that respect. If this got turned into a full-length film, I'd probably still watch it, just out of curiosity and love to the game series. Much like I watched both
Bloodrayne movies, although knowing beforehand they were gonna be pretty Uwe Bolly and, well, "B".
/theJo
 |
This frame is the only one carrying any resemblance to the
games. At first I actually thought they'd ripped this
sequence right out of one of the old games. |
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