Cynical Cinema

Has there ever been a situation where you found yourself thinking “I wish I could get Paris Hilton for this”? No? Me either. I always thought that the second the thought passed through my mind, the one that said I would rather have Paris Hilton here than someone else, well…the sky would fall, all the food in my fridge would rot, brimstone would explode from the umbrella on my patio table and eagles would eat my elbows and my dog. But as of this morning, I am wrong. I has the Paris Hilton thoughts last night, and none of this private aplocalypse has come to pass. And I know what you’re thinking. Why, ever, would you think of Paris Hilton in such a way? I too believed it was impossible, until I saw Legacy.

This is a film released to DVD today, September 9th, by Alliance Films. It’s about the hottest, most shallow sorority on campus. A fat ugly girl is murdered at the sorority house, and the Most Popular, Hottest Girl On Campus becomes a suspect. All of which is fine. This movie has been made countless times before, and a template is in place to create more and more of these movies easily, cheaply and with a minimum of effort. All you have to do is find a girl to play the Hottest Girl On Campus. And for this movie they picked…Haylie Duff. Nothing against Haylie Duff. She does a fine job being the sister of a famous person. But as an actress? She is lacking in skill. As the Hottest Chick On Campus? She is lacking in hotness. And so here’s my theory:

This movie was designed as a star vehicle for Paris Hilton. She has played this exact role before, in movies such as National Lampoon’s Pledge This. I think this movie was offered to her first, but when she found out about the subplot where the Hot Girl’s boyfriend is surreptitiously making sex tapes with her, she felt that it would call attention to her own escapades, and it would undercut her current image as a benign philanthropist. So she refused the role. And they picked Haylie Duff. And I am not suggesting this movie would have been any better with Paris Hilton. In fact, it would likely have been even more irritating. I just found myself constantly wondering why she wasn’t in this piece of crap.

I think, although I’m really not sure, that Legacy is meant to be a parody. The sorority house is all pink. The girls all wear pink. Their house cheer is all about the colour pink. Every guy in the film is the kind of guy who high-fives his buddies after every sip of beer. There are donut-obsessed cops. And one of the cops is Tom Green. Seriously, Tom Green. But Legacy isn’t clever enough to be a parody. In fact, it isn’t even smart enough to make the parody part obvious. So we’re left with a lot of questions. Questions about the intent of the film makers. Questions about the casting decisions. And more than anything, we have questions about why this film was made at all, and why we are watching it.

Lucy Liu is kind of hot. Not hot enough to carry a movie on her own, but kinda hot in a dominatrix, angrily-sexy-chick kind of way. And she can not carry Rise: Blood Hunter on her own. The cover of this movie makes it look like Blade, or Underworld, or Van Helsing, or any one of these vampire-hunter movies that have begun to crop up everywhere. But it isn’t. It’s much worse. You see, Lucy Liu is kinda-dominatrix-hot, and that’s it. She is not an excellent actress, she is just a passable actress in secondary roles. Remember Ecks vs. Sever? God knows I wish I didn’t. Rise: Blood Hunter also stars Michael Chiklis, most recently seen in The Shield and Fantastic Four, but still best-loved by all for The Commish. His character keeps showing up, but is given absolutely nothing to do in the film. His involvement in the final scene is irritating, since we just don’t care about him at all. But then, we don’t care about anyone else either.

Lucy Liu plays a reporter who is working on a story about a cult. She gets attacked by a vampire, and becomes one. She then sets out to destroy all vampires. In the process, she undergoes an instantaneous transformation from a meek, sad little weakling into a tough-talking, bad-ass little weakling. The lines here are painful. “Have mercy”. “Sorry, I’m fresh out just now.” Not only are you ripping off the line, you’re making it immeasureable worse. The movie is told in that disjointed narrative that Tarantino popularized with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but the director clearly has no idea why that style is effective. He just thinks people seem to like that.

And then the bizarre cameos. Marilyn Manson shows up as a bartender, which I understand. It’s goth, it’s vampires, it’s Marilyn Manson. He can’t act at all, but at least the pieces fit. Then…Nick Lachey shows up for two minutes as some thug in the hood. Nicke Lachey? What? And there is nudity. Tons of female nudity, all the way through, much of it courtesy of Lucy Liu herself. However, it is all that obnoxious kind of nudity where you never get a full-frontal boob shot (except for that hooker at the very beginning), and therefore the camera has to go to some pretty strange angles to avoid showing everything at once. Your actress agreed to appear nude. You are showing her nipples anyway. Do you get a better rating if you show them only one at a time and from a side view? Come on. Rise: Blood Hunter is kind of worth it for the nudity, but if you’re that kind of pervert, Lucy Liu is also naked in City of Industry, full boobs, and the movie is much better.