Okay, I picked this flick up on a whim (whim meaning someone told me you see Lucy’s lady berries in this one a lot) and I now find myself really wishing that I hadn’t. Even with such redeeming qualities as Lucy Liu spending a large portion of this film in various forms of undress, it was almost too painful to sit thru. Sebastian has given us such flicks as Snakes On a Plane and Gothika plus we all know Lucy Liu. All I have to say is that they both must have developed a serious crack habit to pay for. I have found more entertainment in a steaming pile of horseshit.
This is one of those movies that starts in the middle, and heads for the beginning using some nifty flashbacks to fill in the story. At least that is what is supposed to happen. THIS movie… wow... okay, let’s see if I can put this into words. This one starts in the middle and almost immediately makes a dash for the beginning. Realizing this may be a bit too early, it then does an about face to the middle again, jumps sideways trying a slightly different plot and once again heads for the beginning. On its way to the beginning, it realises it left the stove on in the middle, turns back, trips on a discarded plot line, cracks itself quite smartly on the head, then staggers drunkenly towards the beginning, trying to look good in the process (kind of like the ugly girl in the bar, who drinks a lot to feel good about herself, then tries to strut herself on the dance floor but now just manages to look like an ugly girl with downs syndrome or something). Having finally reached the beginning, our brave plot now marches proudly towards the middle once again only to trip on yet another discarded plot line, breaking its neck, staggering to the end, where is collapses in a heap and quietly shits itself. Seriously, this movie is like a kid with ADD on meth trying to explain his summer vacation.
All right, Rise starts with a hooker trying to pick up a john in some bar somewhere, only to be thwarted by Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu!) who offers our lady of the night scads o’ cash to come home with her instead. Score! Things just start getting good when Sadie calls things to a halt over dirty hands. Shit. She orders the mattress jockey to go off and wash up, who then goes off and gets caught in the shower cage thingie! Turns out this was a setup by an old guy in a wheelchair who wants to eat hookers. Sadie demands her payment for the hooker (someone’s address) before she offs the old dude with a cheesy one hand crossbow that shoots #2 pencils and looks like it had about a 3 ounce draw (proving she’s on the good team) and frees the hooker. She then decides this is a good time for a nap and passes out on the old guy’s bed. We are then treated with a scene of Sadie naked and in a morgue. Oooh flashback! She wanders around naked until discovering she has no reflection! End flashback.
Now, if the above paragraph did not make much sense to you and you find yourself asking things like “who’s the old guy?” or “why does she have no reflection?” and “what’s with the dirty hands thing?” be prepared to not have a lot of answers. Fuck my brain hurts trying to figure this one out. Okay, it seems that Sadie is some kind of vampire-ish like thing. I think. I find myself a bit confused on this one due to the fact that the blood suckers in this movie A) have no fangs. B) Cannot do anything normally associated with vampires i.e. fly, shape shift, move fast and bench press trucks. The only thing they have in common with vamps, is they need blood and have no reflection. If you find yourself thinking those sound like shitty vampires… well... this is a shitty movie. Moving on. So anyway, after some confusing flashbacks it turns out our almost vampire Sadie is out to kill the people who made her this way and won’t rest until the ones responsible for her condition are dead, yada, yada, yada. It’s your basic revenge-on-those-who-wronged-me plot but with crappy vampires.
Characters are brought in at random times and you will be forced to endure cliché characters such as; drunken detective, who is on leave due to family issues and whose daughter was killed by the bad guy but will manage to save the day despite spending the entire movie looking like he’s wondering if there’s a burrito in his back pocket or if he’s shit himself. We also have the “mysterious man who saves the lead and explains what she has become while nursing her back to health” thrown in for good measure. The gore in this one is mediocre at best as Sadie kills herself up the food chain a la The Crow and the best we get is a few gallons of red dyed corn syrup.
Seriously folks this one is bad. Not the good bad as in campy/funny, but bad as in I’d rather spend 94 minutes trying to pound rabid marmots up my own butthole with a mallet made of silly putty rather than watch this again.
The Moral of the Story: You can kill crappy vampires by poking them gently anywhere in the torso with a #2 pencil.
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- If you are going to show this to a group, be prepared to find new friends. Large amounts of alcohol don’t even help with this one.
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