Blood the Last Vampire

Directed by: Chris Nahon
Starring: Gianna Jun, Allison Miller, Masiela Lusha, JJ Feild

There’s something endearingly weird and cartoonish about Blood the Last Vampire, Chris Nahon’s action/thriller best described as “Blade with a girl in it instead of Wesley Snipes”.
A lot of this may stem from the fact that it’s an English-language film based on a weird Japanese cartoon. More, however, is down to the filmaker and cast managing to capture a spirit that eluded the Wachowski brothers when they took their unfortunate swipe at making Speed Racer.
Set in the late sixties/early seventies, Saya (Gianna Jun) is a vampire killing half-breed swordswoman who works as an agent for the mysterious Council and searches for the evil uber-demon, Onigen, that killed her father.
After insinuating herself into a high school on an American military base, Saya finally gets her chance at revenge but also gets lumbered with looking after the general’s daughter, Alice (Allison Miller), who gets caught up in her secret world of slaying and slow motion ass kicking.
Maybe it was because Speed Racer was too slick and couldn’t pull off the “overwrought” part of the overwrought action and acting but Blood has just the right amount of dodgy CGI and hammy acting to give it a sense of pantomime fun.
It won’t win awards but it will raise pulses and even give you a chuckle or two.
Gianna Jun gives the film a solid core as the monosyllabic, bloodthirsty swordswoman Saya. Her performance won’t win any Oscars but is the most nuanced in the film. The rest of the performers, particularly Liam Cunningham as Saya’s main handler camp it up admirably.
It’s surprising how long it took for a Blade clone with a girl to come out and with Blood the Last Vampire, they’ve made a surprisingly good one.

Monster vs Aliens

Directed by: Conrad Vernon, Rob Letterman
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Rainn Wilson

Striking the sweet spot that The League of Gentlemen and Van Helsing missed when trying to make a monster mash movie, Monsters vs Aliens successfully pulls together the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, The Blob and The Fly to defend the world against an alien invader intent on eliminating the human race and repopulating it with clones.
A product of the animation arm of Dreamworks studio, traditionally the poor cousin of Pixar, is a lean, mean, gag-packed 90 minutes that more than manages to thrill and amuse both the babysitters and the babysat it’s aimed at.
Hit by a cosmically irradiated meteor on her wedding day, our heroine, Susie (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), starts glowing and growing and swiftly finds herself bunged into a monster prison under the governorship of General W R Monger (Keifer Sutherland channelling General Turgidson in Dr Strangelove).
Susie, now codenamed Ginormica, meets her prisonmates the gelatinous B.O.B (Seth Rogan), Dr Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), the Missing Link (Will Arnett) and Insectosaurus (Conrad Vernon) and the group soon gets pressed into service defending the world against the advances of galactic mega-nerd Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson).
Amidst the chases, attacks and myriad movie references (the American president attempts to make first contact armed with a keyboard and a rendition of the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind that segues into Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop) there’s a decent spine of a story about Susie’s acceptance of her new situation and her future with her smarmy TV presenter fiancé.
Aliens, monsters, chases and chuckles – there’s nothing not to like about Monsters vs Aliens.