Sorry, but it's very difficult for me to get excited about this review. After all, the movie I'm reviewing is anything but excitement-worthy. The problem with Kiss of the Damned is that it would be a good film if it had been released decades ago, but in this post-Twilight era, the story is ridiculously predictable. In fact, the plot seems almost like vampire-story-bingo than a full/original new piece.
Here's the film's premise -
- Boy meets girl; girl turns out to be a vampire
- After acting emo-ish about how she doesn't want to hurt him, they get together and she bites/turns him into a vampire.
- They don't feed from humans, just animals. All is well.
- Her vampire relative shows up. This vampire is "evil" because she eats from humans
- Tensions rise; lots of discussion about how killing humans is bad
- The plot is resolved with the evil vampire being somewhat less of a threat and/or removed from the path of our couple, allowing our vampire lovers to go off into the world and surely be happy, non-human-killing vampires for the rest of their days.
...Sound familiar? I could name over ten different vampire films that have a strikingly similar plot.
The result of this has-been-done-a-hundred-times-before plot is that Kiss of the Damned just feels almost inexcusably bland. Nothing in this movie is new; it has all been done before. As the movie progressed, I found myself guessing responses to lines and predicting the next plot movement well in advance. There is no new vampire "lore," no new "looks" or interpretations. Almost everything vampiric about this movie felt familiar and recycled.
However, that doesn't mean Kiss of the Damned is a bad film. The plot and content of the film is certainly just "okay," but visually and ambiance-wise, there is little technically wrong with it. The film has lovely, very classical lighting. The shots and mise-en-scene are all elegant and often on the slow, contemplative side.
The acting isn't bad either. Milo Ventimiglia (aka Peter from Heroes, aka "bad boy" Jesse from Gilmore Girls) plays the protagonist and the vampire's screenwriter-human-love-interest. He is more than easy on the eyes in the film and, while his character is (like everything else in this movie) fairly bland, he is mostly charming.
 |
| "Edward Cullen, eat your heart out..." |
His vampire love interest is played by the elegant French actress Joséphine de la Baume, who seems to have a decent chemistry with Peter-Jesse-Vamp, but the script doesn't give them much to do other than have sex, hunt deer, and contemplate their unlife in a cool, intellectual tone.
Ultimately, that is what is so strange about this film. It has all the hallmarks of a trashy/normal vampire film, but it wants to be "elegant" and "sophisticated." The result, sadly, just comes off as semi-pretentious.
In fact, perhaps true-to-tone, the most entertaining part of the whole movie is when the characters go to a not-quite-self-aware cocktail party of pretentious, NPR-listening vampires who discuss how "free range" and "kosher" the blood being served to them is. It's a clever scene and one which made me wish the movie had embraced this moment of almost-uniqueness and painted a more complete and interesting vampire world. However, after this scene we are back to the predictable plot at hand, and the film falls back into old tropes.
Kiss of the Damned is pretty but vapid, and likely not worth your time unless all you really wanted to see is Milo Ventimiglia looking like an attractive adult as opposed to a petulant teen. In that case, the movie delivers just fine.
Rating: 3 out of 5 bites
~ LK
No comments:
Post a Comment