'Vampire Academy' film adaptation receives mixed reviews
A film adaptation of the 鈥淰ampire Academy鈥� book series by Richelle Mead has stumbled both financially and critically.
The book series consists of six books, with the first, 鈥淰ampire Academy,鈥� having been released in 2007. The novels follow Rose Hathaway, who attends St. Vladimir鈥檚 Academy with her best friend Lissa.
The movie stars 鈥淏eautiful Creatures鈥� actress Zoey Deutch as Rose and actress Lucy Fry as Lissa.
鈥淰ampire Academy鈥� debuted Feb. 7 but $4.1 million domestically, a poor box office report that most likely means a sequel won鈥檛 be greenlit. Reviews were mixed, with reviewer Manohla Dargis calling the film a 鈥済enre rehash.鈥�
鈥淸The movie] takes a helping of 'Harry Potter,' a measure of 'Mean Girls' and elements from various teenage adventures, monster movies and queen-bee stories and recombines the borrowed parts into an unsurprisingly familiar tale,鈥� Dargis wrote. 鈥淲hat is surprising is that while the patchwork whole creaks terribly in places, the parts also show signs of life.鈥�
Dargis called actor Danila Kozlovsky, who portrays mentor and love interest Dimitri, 鈥渁ppealing,鈥� but writes that the struggle between vampire factions in the film is 鈥渇ormulaic and uninvolving鈥� and that director Mark Waters 鈥渃learly didn鈥檛 have the budget to make what little hocus-pocus there is magical.鈥� However, Dargis says Waters 鈥渕anages the material with a winking irreverence that makes the movie breeze right along.鈥�
critic Gary Goldstein called it a 鈥渓ikable comedic-thriller鈥� but says that the complex rules of Mead鈥檚 vampire world are something the movie 鈥渃ontinually strains to explain.鈥�'
鈥淒irector Mark Waters (Daniel's brother) of 'Mean Girls' fame keeps the mayhem and magic moving apace so things are never boring; head-scratching maybe, but never boring,鈥� Goldstein writes. 鈥淒eutch 鈥� is enjoyable formidable, bringing beauty, smarts, and charisma to her all-purpose heroine鈥�. [T]he rest of the cast ... is a bit more forgettable.鈥�
writer Owen Gleiberman was less enamored, giving the movie a C.
鈥淭he most annoying thing about 'Vampire Academy' is that simply to watch this featherweight horror soap opera of mean-but-not-too-mean bloodsucking ingenues, you have to absorb an entire franchise cosmology 鈥� it's popcorn escapism as homework,鈥� he wrote, though he calls Deutch 鈥渟punky.鈥澛�
If a sequel is indeed not pursued, "Vampire Academy" would be the newest YA franchise hopeful for which a franchise may not happen. The studios behind 2013's "Beautiful Creatures" and "Ender's Game" have not announced sequel plans for the movies. Fellow young adult film adaptation "The Mortal Instruments" did disappointingly at the box office and filming on a sequel was pushed back, although Constantin Film's Martin Moszkowicz said the studio hopes to begin production sometime this year, according to .
