Film I gotta say, this let me down.
Okay, so this movie is basically 88 minutes of Milla Jovovich running around with swords and guns and sword-guns while dressed in skintight clothes while killing everyone she can find. WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE?!
Actually, a lot.
This movie was made in 2005. Sure, lifelike animation still wasn't perfect in 05, but it was better than most of the CGI shots used in this movie. The building in the beginning looks so fake it could make a seasoned animator cry. There's a shot where Violet (the main character, btw) goes to drive her motercycle up a building, and there's a CGI still shot of what looks to be a ramp. For some reason, the view is shaky. It's a CGI shot, and the view is shaky. There's no camera to shoot the scene, why is the view shaky?
Another major issue, and something that really, REALLY irritates me is the use of blood in this movie. Now, I won't explicitly come out and say "lack of blood", because there is blood in the movie. It's the use of this blood that pisses me off. There's a scene where Violet cuts a samurai sword in half basically, kills a dude, knocks a guy over and grabs the piece of sword she cut off and stabs the guy with it. Now, this goes into his neck. This isn't a cyborg or a synthetic human, this is a full-blooded human being. There is NO BLOOD spurting out of the side of this guy's neck, where half a sword is hanging out. Yet we get a shot of Violet's hand, and sure enough it's pissing out blood.
Early in the movie, we see Violet undergo a "blood test", so to speak, to see if she is a "hemophage" (which is like a vampire). If these kinds of humans didn't have blood, she never would have gotten as far as she did. So we know not only hemophages bleed.
And then there's hemophage on hemophage combat. Once again, NO BLOOD. Yet Violet can bleed in the movie; it's kind of important near the end.
The story was kind of average. I wasn't expecting much from that department. The dialogue could have used work. Once again, didn't matter. I was looking forward to a sci-fi Kill Billesque romp with blood and carnage... But I only really got carnage. And not to menion lackluster CGI and honestly kinda subpar fight choreography and occasionally shaky camera, even when there's no camera involved.
This thing is a disappointent wrapped in sex. Try the Director's Cut.
Film Cliche/Predictable? Yes. Entertaining? YES.
This is a movie about a bunch of men who dies in one hit and a woman who never dies no matter how much you hit.
The plot is nothing original, a vampi- I mean, Hemophage who, after losing her child, becomes a ruthless killing machine. She is good at what she does, as in, absurdly good at what she does. On one of her missions, she finds out her target is actually a kid, and, you guessed it. She spends the rest of the movie trying to save the kid. Utterly predictable.
The film is practically a comic book in live action format. The fight sequences are so over the top it would put The Matrix to shame. The weapons are so... fitting you would think that their fundamental existence must be powered by the Rule Of Cool. The characters have hardly any depth, and the list goes on...
But guess what, that is why the film is so entertaining. If you are not in the least bit sadistic, then don't bother, this movie will bore you to tears. But behind the cliched plot, flat characters and oh-so gratuitous action sequences, the film is just entertainment in the most bare form. Where you focus on the (dare I say) actually quite beautiful ways in which characters end each other's lives. With minimal plot and character to divert your attention from that. Yes, the actions within the fight scenes will seem very unnecessary and may even raise some Fridge Logic. Nonetheless, if there was a genre of films called the "art of killing", then this will definitely be one of them.
Overall, think of it this way: shut down your intelligence and common sense when watching this movie, don't try and go into depth, just enjoy the fight scenes that live and breath the Rule Of Cool and the CGI Scenery Porn. Although, of course, I know that this is not possible for everyone.
I wouldn't call the movie So Bad Its Good, because that is a little insulting in the end. It is undebatable that the movie is not brilliant all round, but it is evidental that the people put a lot of efforts into the other, more enjoyable aspects of the movie.