Werewolf movies have been quite en vogue since "Underworld" electrified theaters in 2003. The genre had been in a slight upswing before Kate Beckinsale showed how well she could fit into a leather outfit. "Underworld" wasn´t a great film, but it was the female empowerment werewolf equivalent of Wesley Snipe´s "Blade" series. It was only a matter of time before a real stinker in the werewolf genre found light of day and set the entire sub-genre of the fantasy horror genre back into darkness. "Blood & Chocolate" is exactly that film. Director Katja von Garnier had not had much work before the film and leading actress Agness Bruckner had previously done a lot of work in television, but not in cinema. One could chalk "Blood & Chocolate" off to a rookie experience for all involved. However, that would just be trying to make an excuse for this dreadful film.
"Blood & Chocolate" finds the lovely Agnes Bruckner starring as the lovely and promising Vivien; a girl who was forced to flee her native America when her parents were murdered. Vivien is not just a refugee in Romania, but a loup-garou; a half-man, half-wolf creature that hunts in packs by night and pretends to be human by day. Vivien is the promised bride to the loup-garou´s leader, Gabriel (Olivier Martinez) and she is prophesized to bring the loup-garou into a new era of tranquility and power. She consistently questions her existence and the purpose of the loup-garou. When she meets an American writer, Aiden (Hugh Dancy), her world begins to turn upside down. Aiden is researching the loup-garou and intends to write a graphic novel on the mythical creations. Quickly, Vivien´s pack takes offense to her involvement with a man other than Gabriel and someone who may publicize the loup-garou´s secrets.
I´d go more into the plot, but that would be an injustice to both your time and mine. There is a subplot involving Vivien´s cousin, and also the son of Gabriel. His name is Rafe (Bryan Dick) and he threatens to kill Aiden and take away Vivien´s enjoyment of the ´meat.´ There are a few other things going on, but nothing to terribly far from the basic plotline of girl-meets-boy and girl shouldn´t be with boy, but girl loves boy and ultimately betrays her family for the boy. She chooses chocolate over blood. This rebellious girl romantic plotline has been rehashed time and time again. We´ve seen it countless times. The twist in this film is that the girl happens to turn into a beautiful dog with sharp fangs. She is not a werewolf, but she is a loup-garou.
The loup-garou themselves were quite unimpressive movie monsters. They lacked the horrific appeal of the werewolf; they were run-of-the-mill wolves who had shiny coats and awfully white and clean teeth. They were much smaller in physical size than the humans they transformed from and the transformation occurred after the person jumped into the air and was surrounded by a psychedelic light. Speaking of jumping, there was an awful lot of jumping in the film. Everywhere that Vivien ran, she had to jump off the walls in an alley or do something that was perhaps meant to be cool. Watching Tony Hawk wall-plant is cool; watching a pretty young girl inexplicitly jump on a building wall just two feet off the ground is not. The device was meant to serve as reminder that the loup-garou were not real people, but it just came off as horribly silly. I could easily replicate most of the jumps that were seen in the film, except for those that were in need of special effects to achieve.
This is one wolf movie to avoid. The animals are beautiful and so is Agnes Bruckner. The acting is nothing spectacular and I wanted to slap Bryan Dick around for his cocky and overly confident performance as the son of Gabriel. There was hardly any chemistry between Agnes Bruckner and Hugh Dancy. Their relationship was uninspired and although I felt Dancy did a good job as Aiden, the storyline of "Blood & Chocolate" isn´t going to keep audiences inspired enough to respect the work done here. From what I´ve seen, the film is not very faithful to the book and is extremely inferior to the written word. It is well and good to adapt a book to screen and it is perfectly fine to cast attractive actors in the adaptation, but there is nothing well and good about "Blood & Chocolate."
"Blood & Chocolate" finds the lovely Agnes Bruckner starring as the lovely and promising Vivien; a girl who was forced to flee her native America when her parents were murdered. Vivien is not just a refugee in Romania, but a loup-garou; a half-man, half-wolf creature that hunts in packs by night and pretends to be human by day. Vivien is the promised bride to the loup-garou´s leader, Gabriel (Olivier Martinez) and she is prophesized to bring the loup-garou into a new era of tranquility and power. She consistently questions her existence and the purpose of the loup-garou. When she meets an American writer, Aiden (Hugh Dancy), her world begins to turn upside down. Aiden is researching the loup-garou and intends to write a graphic novel on the mythical creations. Quickly, Vivien´s pack takes offense to her involvement with a man other than Gabriel and someone who may publicize the loup-garou´s secrets.
I´d go more into the plot, but that would be an injustice to both your time and mine. There is a subplot involving Vivien´s cousin, and also the son of Gabriel. His name is Rafe (Bryan Dick) and he threatens to kill Aiden and take away Vivien´s enjoyment of the ´meat.´ There are a few other things going on, but nothing to terribly far from the basic plotline of girl-meets-boy and girl shouldn´t be with boy, but girl loves boy and ultimately betrays her family for the boy. She chooses chocolate over blood. This rebellious girl romantic plotline has been rehashed time and time again. We´ve seen it countless times. The twist in this film is that the girl happens to turn into a beautiful dog with sharp fangs. She is not a werewolf, but she is a loup-garou.
The loup-garou themselves were quite unimpressive movie monsters. They lacked the horrific appeal of the werewolf; they were run-of-the-mill wolves who had shiny coats and awfully white and clean teeth. They were much smaller in physical size than the humans they transformed from and the transformation occurred after the person jumped into the air and was surrounded by a psychedelic light. Speaking of jumping, there was an awful lot of jumping in the film. Everywhere that Vivien ran, she had to jump off the walls in an alley or do something that was perhaps meant to be cool. Watching Tony Hawk wall-plant is cool; watching a pretty young girl inexplicitly jump on a building wall just two feet off the ground is not. The device was meant to serve as reminder that the loup-garou were not real people, but it just came off as horribly silly. I could easily replicate most of the jumps that were seen in the film, except for those that were in need of special effects to achieve.
This is one wolf movie to avoid. The animals are beautiful and so is Agnes Bruckner. The acting is nothing spectacular and I wanted to slap Bryan Dick around for his cocky and overly confident performance as the son of Gabriel. There was hardly any chemistry between Agnes Bruckner and Hugh Dancy. Their relationship was uninspired and although I felt Dancy did a good job as Aiden, the storyline of "Blood & Chocolate" isn´t going to keep audiences inspired enough to respect the work done here. From what I´ve seen, the film is not very faithful to the book and is extremely inferior to the written word. It is well and good to adapt a book to screen and it is perfectly fine to cast attractive actors in the adaptation, but there is nothing well and good about "Blood & Chocolate."
Werewolf movies have been quite en vogue since "Underworld" electrified theaters in 2003. The genre had been in a slight upswing before Kate Beckinsale showed how well she could fit into a leather outfit. "Underworld" wasn´t a great film, but it was the female empowerment werewolf equivalent of Wesley Snipe´s "Blade" series. It was only a matter of time before a real stinker in the werewolf genre found light of day and set the entire sub-genre of the fantasy horror genre back into darkness. "Blood & Chocolate" is exactly that film. Director Katja von Garnier had not had much work before the film and leading actress Agness Bruckner had previously done a lot of work in television, but not in cinema. One could chalk "Blood & Chocolate" off to a rookie experience for all involved. However, that would just be trying to make an excuse for this dreadful film.
"Blood & Chocolate" finds the lovely Agnes Bruckner starring as the lovely and promising Vivien; a girl who was forced to flee her native America when her parents were murdered. Vivien is not just a refugee in Romania, but a loup-garou; a half-man, half-wolf creature that hunts in packs by night and pretends to be human by day. Vivien is the promised bride to the loup-garou´s leader, Gabriel (Olivier Martinez) and she is prophesized to bring the loup-garou into a new era of tranquility and power. She consistently questions her existence and the purpose of the loup-garou. When she meets an American writer, Aiden (Hugh Dancy), her world begins to turn upside down. Aiden is researching the loup-garou and intends to write a graphic novel on the mythical creations. Quickly, Vivien´s pack takes offense to her involvement with a man other than Gabriel and someone who may publicize the loup-garou´s secrets.
I´d go more into the plot, but that would be an injustice to both your time and mine. There is a subplot involving Vivien´s cousin, and also the son of Gabriel. His name is Rafe (Bryan Dick) and he threatens to kill Aiden and take away Vivien´s enjoyment of the ´meat.´ There are a few other things going on, but nothing to terribly far from the basic plotline of girl-meets-boy and girl shouldn´t be with boy, but girl loves boy and ultimately betrays her family for the boy. She chooses chocolate over blood. This rebellious girl romantic plotline has been rehashed time and time again. We´ve seen it countless times. The twist in this film is that the girl happens to turn into a beautiful dog with sharp fangs. She is not a werewolf, but she is a loup-garou.
The loup-garou themselves were quite unimpressive movie monsters. They lacked the horrific appeal of the werewolf; they were run-of-the-mill wolves who had shiny coats and awfully white and clean teeth. They were much smaller in physical size than the humans they transformed from and the transformation occurred after the person jumped into the air and was surrounded by a psychedelic light. Speaking of jumping, there was an awful lot of jumping in the film. Everywhere that Vivien ran, she had to jump off the walls in an alley or do something that was perhaps meant to be cool. Watching Tony Hawk wall-plant is cool; watching a pretty young girl inexplicitly jump on a building wall just two feet off the ground is not. The device was meant to serve as reminder that the loup-garou were not real people, but it just came off as horribly silly. I could easily replicate most of the jumps that were seen in the film, except for those that were in need of special effects to achieve.
This is one wolf movie to avoid. The animals are beautiful and so is Agnes Bruckner. The acting is nothing spectacular and I wanted to slap Bryan Dick around for his cocky and overly confident performance as the son of Gabriel. There was hardly any chemistry between Agnes Bruckner and Hugh Dancy. Their relationship was uninspired and although I felt Dancy did a good job as Aiden, the storyline of "Blood & Chocolate" isn´t going to keep audiences inspired enough to respect the work done here. From what I´ve seen, the film is not very faithful to the book and is extremely inferior to the written word. It is well and good to adapt a book to screen and it is perfectly fine to cast attractive actors in the adaptation, but there is nothing well and good about "Blood & Chocolate."
"Blood & Chocolate" finds the lovely Agnes Bruckner starring as the lovely and promising Vivien; a girl who was forced to flee her native America when her parents were murdered. Vivien is not just a refugee in Romania, but a loup-garou; a half-man, half-wolf creature that hunts in packs by night and pretends to be human by day. Vivien is the promised bride to the loup-garou´s leader, Gabriel (Olivier Martinez) and she is prophesized to bring the loup-garou into a new era of tranquility and power. She consistently questions her existence and the purpose of the loup-garou. When she meets an American writer, Aiden (Hugh Dancy), her world begins to turn upside down. Aiden is researching the loup-garou and intends to write a graphic novel on the mythical creations. Quickly, Vivien´s pack takes offense to her involvement with a man other than Gabriel and someone who may publicize the loup-garou´s secrets.
I´d go more into the plot, but that would be an injustice to both your time and mine. There is a subplot involving Vivien´s cousin, and also the son of Gabriel. His name is Rafe (Bryan Dick) and he threatens to kill Aiden and take away Vivien´s enjoyment of the ´meat.´ There are a few other things going on, but nothing to terribly far from the basic plotline of girl-meets-boy and girl shouldn´t be with boy, but girl loves boy and ultimately betrays her family for the boy. She chooses chocolate over blood. This rebellious girl romantic plotline has been rehashed time and time again. We´ve seen it countless times. The twist in this film is that the girl happens to turn into a beautiful dog with sharp fangs. She is not a werewolf, but she is a loup-garou.
The loup-garou themselves were quite unimpressive movie monsters. They lacked the horrific appeal of the werewolf; they were run-of-the-mill wolves who had shiny coats and awfully white and clean teeth. They were much smaller in physical size than the humans they transformed from and the transformation occurred after the person jumped into the air and was surrounded by a psychedelic light. Speaking of jumping, there was an awful lot of jumping in the film. Everywhere that Vivien ran, she had to jump off the walls in an alley or do something that was perhaps meant to be cool. Watching Tony Hawk wall-plant is cool; watching a pretty young girl inexplicitly jump on a building wall just two feet off the ground is not. The device was meant to serve as reminder that the loup-garou were not real people, but it just came off as horribly silly. I could easily replicate most of the jumps that were seen in the film, except for those that were in need of special effects to achieve.
This is one wolf movie to avoid. The animals are beautiful and so is Agnes Bruckner. The acting is nothing spectacular and I wanted to slap Bryan Dick around for his cocky and overly confident performance as the son of Gabriel. There was hardly any chemistry between Agnes Bruckner and Hugh Dancy. Their relationship was uninspired and although I felt Dancy did a good job as Aiden, the storyline of "Blood & Chocolate" isn´t going to keep audiences inspired enough to respect the work done here. From what I´ve seen, the film is not very faithful to the book and is extremely inferior to the written word. It is well and good to adapt a book to screen and it is perfectly fine to cast attractive actors in the adaptation, but there is nothing well and good about "Blood & Chocolate."
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