Vampire Academy (2014)

Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, half human-half vampire, a guardian of the Moroi, peaceful, mortal vampires living discreetly within our world. Her calling is to protect the Moroi from bloodthirsty, immortal Vampires, the Strigoi.

Director:

Mark Waters

Writers:

Richelle Mead (novel), Daniel Waters (screenplay)

Stars:

Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Zoey Deutch	...	Rose Hathaway
Lucy Fry	...	Lissa Dragomir
Danila Kozlovsky	...	Dimitri Belikov
Gabriel Byrne	...	Victor Dashkov
Dominic Sherwood	...	Christian Ozera
Olga Kurylenko	...	Headmistress Kirova
Sarah Hyland	...	Natalie
Cameron Monaghan	...	Mason
Sami Gayle	...	Mia Rinaldi
Ashley Charles	...	Jesse
Claire Foy	...	Ms. Karp
Joely Richardson	...	Queen Tatiana
Dominique Tipper	...	Guardian Gabriela
Edward Holcroft	...	Aaron
Bronté Norman-Terrell	...	Camilla

Storyline

Rose Hathaway is a dhampir, half-vampire and half-human, who is training to be a guardian at St Vladimir's Academy along with many others like her. There are good and bad vampires in their world: Moroi, who co-exist peacefully among the humans and only take blood from donors, and also possess the ability to control one of the four elements - water, earth, fire or air; and Strigoi, blood-sucking, evil vampires who drink to kill. Rose and other dhampir guardians are trained to protect Moroi and kill Strigoi throughout their education. Along with her best friend, Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, a Moroi and the last of her line, with whom she has a nigh unbreakable bond, Rose must run away from St Vladimir's, in order to protect Lissa from those who wish to harm the princess and use her for their own means.

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Plot Keywords:

vampire | dhampir | academy | guardian | princess | 

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Taglines:

Blood is family. Blood is pain. And blood is death.

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA UK Romania

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 February 2014 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Vampire académie

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$3,921,742 (USA) (7 February 2014)

Gross:

$7,791,146 (USA) (4 April 2014)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Angry Films, Kintop Pictures, Preger Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Lucy Fry did not receive a callback for the first casting. When the producers started accepting self-tapes she submitted one that landed her a studio callback.

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Goofs

Natalie comments about how Mia had been around, and had a new haircut, but in the pictures of her with Andre (from 2 years prior), she had the same haircut.

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Quotes

Rose Hathaway: It's funny. Your reasons for not loving me just... make me love you more.

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Connections

References Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

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Soundtracks

Bela Lugosi's Dead
Written by Daniel Ash, Kevin Haskins, David J (as David J. Haskins), Peter Murphy
Performed by 'CHVRCHES'
Courtesy of Glassnote Records

User Reviews

Exposition from a VA Series Reader whose not a YA

I have read all of the VA series and enjoyed them immensely, mainly because of Rose. Rose Hathaway is feisty, determined, funny, and flawed, and it was always fun to see what she would do next and how that would land her in trouble. This story is not your "typical vampire" story. Everyone in the story already knows about vampires and the makeup of the society they live in. Nor is it a damsel in distress story. Rose already possesses strength and determination, although she does have impulse control issues. She is best friends with the vampire princess, Lissa Dragomir who is the last of her line, and extremely loyal and protective of her.

The movie and books have been compared to many other YA/vampire genre, but the story does not follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey outline. Both Star Wars and Harry Potter did excellent jobs capturing the hero's journey, and the Twilight series followed Carl Jung's development of the soul and the anima/animus well. Mead does not use either of these outlines/archetypes in her books, and her storytelling provides a freshness, as well as giving a portrayal of strong women who look out for each other.

Perhaps, the story could be compared to "Thelma and Louise" navigate a dysfunctional high school that just happens to have vampires and magic.

Now for the movie itself: the tone and pacing of the movie are very much Rose and are true to the tone and pacing of the books. I actually liked the new scenes that were added to the movie – they did not distract in ways that other book-to-movies have done, but actually enhanced the story. I think the movie represented all the dynamics of the various relationships well, although I do wish the Rose/Dimitri relationship had been better developed. There wasn't the tension between them that there was in the books. And although I wish I could have forgotten the story (and the previews) during the movie so that I could have enjoyed the movie without all that knowledge, I did find myself getting lost in the movie.

Of all the first time movies of various popular YA book-to-movie adaptations that I have read and seen, I think this movie was one of the better ones that has been done.