Let me start by saying that I have read the books and I really liked them. I have no negative preconceptions about young adult vampire books.
However, everything about this film was done in a spectacularly mishit fashion:
Let's start with the casting. Rose Hathaway is supposed to be a badass future Guardian of a more or less clear middle eastern descent and while other filmmakers have used purebred white girls for such roles before they at least used some tan to bring them closer to the character's description in the book (yes, I am talking about Jennifer Lawrence and The Hunger Games). Zoey Deutch is s very beautiful young girl with a nice cleavage (as clearly accentuated in this movie) but she is neither badass nor mixed. (It is a very old argument about having white people playing mixed characters on film, or even being used on the book covers.) Danila Kozlovsky is young and popular in Russia and a decent actor, what he is not, however, is imposing. And Dmitry Belikov is supposed to be this warrior god. And the most important thing is that (in my eyes) Zoey and Danila have zero chemistry together.
The worst part though is the script. I read Vampire Academy and I loved the fully realised characters, each with their own backstory as well as agenda. In the film, however, we are left with two vapid girls being high school bitches (there is no really any other way to put this). I do not know if it was the relative failure of Beautiful Creatures and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones but whoever in the promotional department thought that playing up the high school aspects of VA was the way to go should be fired.
This production did not have the money for the action and the special effects, the leads were miscast, the book butchered to fit some promotional idea and Richelle Mead (the author) ever sells the rights to any of her other books to the same studio she deserves what she gets.
However, everything about this film was done in a spectacularly mishit fashion:
Let's start with the casting. Rose Hathaway is supposed to be a badass future Guardian of a more or less clear middle eastern descent and while other filmmakers have used purebred white girls for such roles before they at least used some tan to bring them closer to the character's description in the book (yes, I am talking about Jennifer Lawrence and The Hunger Games). Zoey Deutch is s very beautiful young girl with a nice cleavage (as clearly accentuated in this movie) but she is neither badass nor mixed. (It is a very old argument about having white people playing mixed characters on film, or even being used on the book covers.) Danila Kozlovsky is young and popular in Russia and a decent actor, what he is not, however, is imposing. And Dmitry Belikov is supposed to be this warrior god. And the most important thing is that (in my eyes) Zoey and Danila have zero chemistry together.
The worst part though is the script. I read Vampire Academy and I loved the fully realised characters, each with their own backstory as well as agenda. In the film, however, we are left with two vapid girls being high school bitches (there is no really any other way to put this). I do not know if it was the relative failure of Beautiful Creatures and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones but whoever in the promotional department thought that playing up the high school aspects of VA was the way to go should be fired.
This production did not have the money for the action and the special effects, the leads were miscast, the book butchered to fit some promotional idea and Richelle Mead (the author) ever sells the rights to any of her other books to the same studio she deserves what she gets.
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