Metamorphosis (2007)

This one looked like it had a lot of potential. I mean, if that picture on the cover of Christopher Lambert doesn't sell you, I don't know what will. Plus, it's directed by Jenö Hodi, who did one of the all time best here at the DTVC, American Kickboxer 2. I had high hopes.

Metamorphosis is about the Countess of Bathory's daughter, who is a vampire living in modern day Hungary, fighting the descendants of the Thorzo line, which condemned her mother, and of whom Christopher Lambert is the sole surviving member. Along the way, she bumps into an American pretty boy/history author going to Hungary to research a book on the Countess with his two friends. Hilarity ensues, as the pair run into all kinds of trouble, from bad monks to wolves to the friend not being able to drive, all the way down to vampires.



This was a big ol' muddled pile of asscrack. First off, total Lambert bait-and-switch. If the guy is only in the movie at the very beginning and the very end, tell us it's a special appearance, don't splash his face all over the cover. If this is a bad movie about annoying Saved by the Bell rejects, don't sell us on an awesome Lambert Vampire vehicle. Still, I can forgive some of this if the film is a too sweet vampire flick, but it wasn't that either. It ended up being about Purgatory and multiple dimensions or something. I'm serious. Yes, the girl and Lambert sported fangs and drank blood on occasion, but this wasn't a great vampire flick in the classic mode. What this was was a mess.

Let me get one thing straight though, Lambert was great. The script felt like it was rushed into production without a good proofread, which meant Lambert's trademark accent sounded even funnier as his lines sounded out of place. I wouldn't have been as upset with the bait-and-switch, if they'd just called it a special appearance as opposed to making it out like the film was centered around him. If I go into a movie thinking Lambert is the focal point, and I get three kids who lost out on the try-outs for Supernatural, it's going to make me look less favorably on other aspects of the film, like the rushed script.



One of the funniest results of the un-proofread script was a gaff in the math. They constantly referred to events that happened in the 17th century as "over 500 years ago." The first time it happened I thought I had just misheard it, but when it kept happening, I knew it wasn't me. Now, the easy thing to do on my end would be to call the people who made the film stupid for this error, but I don't think that's the case, I think it was just an honest mistake. They thought, rightly so, that 17th century means 1600s, but then, when adding to make the 21st century, they stayed with the 1600 number, as opposed to going back to 17th century, hence an erroneous 500 years. It's something that should've been spotted, but when you shoot a movie in a week, and everyone has already scattered after filming, I can see how it wouldn't be noticed until it was too late.

Irena A. Hoffman plays Elizabeth, the Countess' daughter and modern vampire. Obviously she's very attractive, but she also does a pretty solid job, even at the end when the film was making less and less sense, and I needed to put on a pair of safety-goggles to protect my eyes from all the loose ends flying together. She actually had me believing that maybe she knew what she was talking about, especially since I didn't. She falls in love with Canadian boy toy Corey Sevier, who was in the Dolph classic Detention. He may not want to hear this, but I think he was a bit above his pay grade playing the part of a history writer. Tara Reid as an anthropologist in Alone in the Dark thought that was a stretch.



This movie took place in the Carpathian Mountains, so you know me, the hiker, I had to go to Wikipedia to see what they were all about. According to the article, the highest point is only just above 8,000 feet, which still sounds like a lot considering nothing in New England gets higher than Mt. Washington at 6,288, but compared to the 14ers in Colorado, or the nearby Alps, it's not as high. My experience tells me anything above 12,000 is where the problems with altitude occur. Anyway, I couldn't find anything about how aggressive they are to hike, and it seems like a lot of the adventure tours are more interested in taking me to castles instead of peaks, so I probably won't end up making it over there. Besides, there are plenty of peaks in the States I need to get to too...

If that last paragraph is any indication, this film didn't have much in the way of substance. All I can say is, don't let the too sweet pic of a vampire Christopher Lambert on the cover fool you, he's in it, but not much. It's more about a muddled script that was rushed to production featuring a few kids that didn't make call-backs on the 90210 auditions.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431265/