Vampire Academy

Vampire Academy - Dir. Mark Waters (2014)

The literary graveyard is strewn with the corpses of young adult novels that failed to become lucrative movie franchises. Hollywood studios have scoured the bookshelves looking for the next big thing. But, for every Hunger Games that becomes a box office sensation, there are a dozen also-rans like The Golden Compass, City of Ember, Beautiful Creatures, The Host, and The Mortal Instruments. These flops haven't scared the movers and shakers as 2014 has seen the release of Divergent as well as the upcoming The Giver and The Maze Runner. While Divergent was another big get for Summit Entertainment, Vampire Academy was nothing short of a misfire for the Weinstein Company.

The trailers for Vampire Academy made it appear to be another parody from the bankrupt minds of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The movie culled obvious elements from Twilight, Mean Girls, and Harry Potter. Alas, Vampire Academy is actually based on a series of books by Richelle Mead.

In the world of Vampire Academy, there are three types of vampires. The Moroi are peaceful vampires who drink blood from willing subjects and only enough to sustain themselves. Sunlight is a weakness, but they don't burst into flames. They don't sparkle either. The Dhampir are half-human and half-vampire. They train and serve as the bodyguards for the Moroi elite. Then, there are the Strigoi, which are the vampires we have come to know and love. When a Moroi kills while feeding, they become an undead creature with a violent thirst for blood. Strigoi can only be killed by s silver stake.

Lissa Dragomir (Lucy Fry) is Moroi royalty who survived a deadly car accident that killed her parents and brother. The only other survivor is Lissa's best friend, Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch), a guardian in training. Due to this tragedy, the pair has developed a psychic bond that allows Rose to keep tabs on her charge.

The film picks up with Lissa and Rose on the run having fled the sanctuary of St. Vladimir's Academy two years ago. They are quickly caught and brought back to the boarding school by a group of guardians led by Dimitri Belikov (Danila Kozlovsky). Thrust back into the fold, Lissa and Rose must navigate the perilous waters of high school. On top of death threats and nasty rumors, there's young love as Lissa falls for Christian Ozera (Dominic Sherwood), an outcast whose parents were hunted down after turning Strigoi. Meanwhile, Rose tries to fight her feelings for her mentor Dimitri. No mention at all how creepy it is for the brooding warrior to be pining for an underage student.

It's easy to see why Vampire Academy would appeal to its target audience. The story revolves around two teenage girls with a focus on their friendship with romance as a side dish. Unlike Bella, Lissa and Rose are not passive protagonists and neither is defined by the men in their lives. Unfortunately, the script buries their relationship underneath a mountain of clumsy exposition and groan inducing dialogue. It feels as if the first half of the movie is spent entirely on establishing the rules of the world, the hierarchy of the vampires, and the backstories of our heroes. Nobody talks like a real human being, which is a shock since the screenplay was written by Daniel Waters, who penned the 80's teen comedy Heathers. The director is his brother, Mark Waters, who also helmed Mean Girls and another YA adaptation The Spiderwick Chronicles.

You wouldn't think established filmmakers had a hand in the making of Vampire Academy, more like a bunch of marketing firms piecing together a movie out of current trends and best sellers at Hot Topic. St. Vladimir's might be confused with Hogwarts if the latter didn't have a budget five times larger. None of the students learn about calculus or Shakespeare. They study magic, of course. Moroi have the ability to control the elements of earth, fire, wind, and water. It's up to the individual to decide which they wish to concentrate on. Lissa, being cut from the mold of the most special girl in the world, effortlessly controls all four along with the ability of Spirit that allows her to heal and join Captain Planet and the Planeteers. The Waters Brothers certainly get no love for forcing an actor of the caliber of Gabriel Byrne to speak awful lines such as, "She's a few corpuscles shy of a full artery."

Gabriel Byrne is absolutely wasted as the elderly vampire as are Olga Kurylenko as the school's headmistress and Joely Richardson in a throwaway role as the vampire queen. Zoey Deutch is quite charming and has drawn comparisons to Ellen Page in her delivery of one-liners, even if they consist of tired pop culture references. Deutch herself is 80's royalty being the daughter of Lea Thompson and Howard Deutch, the director of Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink. Pink gets a shout out as Rose cavalierly calls her platonic guy friend, "Duckie."

Vampire Academy is an utterly unoriginal take on the genre. Yes, this movie sucks in more ways than one.

Rating: * (*****)