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Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999)
Disappointing
"Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned" is the third installment of the Gabriel Knight games, a series of adventure games about the roguish writer/paranormal detective, Gabriel Knight. Gabriel and his companion, Grace, have been asked by Prince James of Albany to investigate a series of mysterious attacks by so-called "night visitors." When the son of Prince James is kidnapped, Gabriel pursues the night visitors to Rennes le Château, where he begins piecing together a mystery relating to the Holy Grail.
Despite the marketing, this game is not about vampires. Vampires have a token appearance in the game, but never command center stage, as did the voodoo hounfor in "Sins of the Fathers" or the werewolves in "The Beast Within." Gabriel and Grace make no attempt to uncover the true nature of vampires, or to research lore on vampires. Although the vampires do murder three people during the course of the game, their victims are chosen at random and have nothing to do with the main plot.
A large part of the charm of the first two Gabriel Knight installments was in the relationships which Gabriel formed with the villains. Through these relationships, the player could not help but sympathize with the villain, and thus the villain was transformed into more of a human and less of a monster. However, in "Blood of the Sacred," Gabriel's only interaction with the villain is through a single, cheesy interview, which does nothing to endear the villain to the player.
The roles that Gabriel and Grace play in this mystery are fairly futile. Gabriel spends his time snooping into the identities of members of a treasure-hunter tour group staying at his hotel, but what he uncovers amounts to nothing more than a red herring. Grace spends her time researching the mystery of Rennes le Château, but all her research is rendered superfluous by the presence of a perplexing ally who has known the answer to this mystery for centuries.
The actions of this perplexing ally and his polar opposite --- the vampire leader --- are insupportable. The ally leaves hints about the mystery of Rennes le Château in broad daylight and expects Grace (and not the other treasure hunters from the tour group) to find them. However, he could have revealed the mystery to Grace in its entirety on day 1, instead of putting the kidnapped child at risk for an additional 48 hours. And in the end, he simply tells Grace the mystery in its entirety anyway.
Meanwhile, the vampire leader fails to achieve the goals of centuries of scheming, because he chooses to refrain from action for two days after the kidnapping of the child. The only reason given for his decision to delay action is that he wants to savor his victory.
The game would have been much better had it been purely focused on the Holy Grail. The kidnapping and vampires should have been omitted, replaced with a race against the Vatican to uncover the mystery of Rennes le Château. Since Gabriel is portrayed more than once as reluctantly Catholic, this conflict would have had many opportunities for character development.
All in all, the game was a disappointing installment in the series, despite an improved interface and the return of Tim Curry as the voice of Gabriel Knight.
Van Helsing (2004)
Kate Beckinsale in a corset....
...yum. Unfortunately, I've just enumerated all the reasons for seeing this movie.
I went into this movie hoping to see a decent action/horror flick, light on plot, and was surprised to find that the movie didn't live up to even those meager expectations. Van Helsing never seems to be in mortal danger at any point in the movie, which left me with a "Who cares?" attitude throughout. The arch-villain, Dracula, is something of a wimp, who spends most of his time letting his wives do his dirty-work while he sits around various castles and walks on the ceiling.
Besides seeing the breathtaking Kate Beckinsale in a swashbuckling outfit, the only other bright spot to the film was the performance of David Wenham as Friar Carl. Wenham shows his acting abilities as he goes from the proud but troubled Faramir in Lord of the Rings to the stooped, studious, witty and faithful sidekick in Van Helsing.
If you want an action/horror flick, in which you can drool over Kate Beckinsale, go see Underworld. If you want a loud action movie with gadgets, gizmos, supernatural powers, and great special effects, go watch or re-watch the X-Men movies. But if you want a ludicrous movie where you find yourself bored silly, laughing at the script, plot, and fight scenes, and checking your watch while you wonder how you could have been so stupid to have wasted $8, then catch Van Helsing in theaters today!
Knockaround Guys (2001)
Dismal failure
This was a lousy, boring movie. My first thought when the movie ended was, "At least it was only 90 minutes long." I've been trying my hardest to classify this movie, but nothing seems appropriate. There was no action to justify calling it an action flick. The horrible acting, 2D characters, and empty plot defy the term drama. The occasional laugh the movie inspired did not in any way make it a comedy. The only classification I have for it is "fiction." It is a waste of whatever money you spend to see it.
On the bright side, Vin Diesel plays an excellent tough-guy in this movie, and John Malkovich is great like always. It's a shame the movie could not have been written around these two actors, because the rest of the cast is pathetic. The lead actor, Barry Pepper, tried his hardest to be Johnny Depp, and his forced acting made me cringe.
Go see anything else. Some movies make you laugh because of how bad they are; this is not one of them. A dismal failure.