I didn’t plan on seeing this. Basically, my sister went to the DVD store by herself and I wasn’t able to prevent her from buying it. I had made my opposition clear from the moment I saw the uninspiring trailer.
However, I have been wrong twice this year about movies I didn’t want to see that turned out to be movies I’m glad I saw. Vampire Academy was the second one I was wrong about. (For the curious, Lone Survivor was the first, but this post is not about that.)
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not Lone Survivor level of badassness. It’s got its flaws. Chief among them being the lightening fast dialogue and story pacing. Egads, the speed! And the villain. Terrible levels of obviousness were at work there, but then again, it’s not a book meant for testing your Nancy Drew skills or anything. Still, if someone had told me the Weinstein brothers and Mark Waters were involved, I would have given it a chance.
Luckily, the movie was full of enough spunk, sly troupe-tossing and decent acting to get by on its own. No, I haven’t read the books, and don’t plan to, but I enjoyed the idea of three different vampire species; the intriguing glimpses of religion I saw; a heroine who was both intelligent, spirited and devoted to her best friend of the same sex and a night-operating Hogwarts that combined bits of ‘Heathers’ in its hallowed halls. Frankly, if I was still a teenager, I would have loved this, not the least because it’s a movie that doesn’t tell young people the most important relationship in their lives is the romantic one.
Oh, and the guy who played Dimitri? Far too hot for a young girl like Rose. Send him to me, I need some heat in my old age 😉
If you didn’t want to see this, I’d at least recommend you take a look at the opening and see if you want to keep watching. Frankly, it reminded me of Buffy and that sort of snarky paranormal adventure plays well in my house. If you barf at the very idea of continuing to watch, no judgement. I am, after all, the woman who had no problem watching Kevin Sorbo in ‘Kull the Conqueror’.
And if you tell that to anyone else, I WILL hunt you down and feed you to the Strigoi.
On a side note, I can’t believe IMDB has Mortal Instruments rated higher than this. I fell asleep on that one. And I LIKE Lilly Collins. That guy she was smooching on though…yeeesh. Not my type at all. Needs to eat and get out in the sun more.
Stay thirsty, my friends!
R.S.A. Garcia 