The Breed (2001)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Fresh and Exciting

Awesome Movie

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a great movie. Bai Ling and Adrian Paul deserve huge amounts of credit for maintaining their roles and carrying the miasma of authoritarian Gothic goodness while that idiot Bokeem Woodbine savages every line he has, fails to even swear in an appropriate or at least believable manner and basically attempts to single-handedly ruin the movie. His performance is atrocious.That said, the movie is quite good. It has a cold war/Eastern Bloc/orwellian vibe with hints of art deco and the 40s thrown in as well. the plot is interesting and fairly innovative.Anyone who is a fan of films like blade runner, citizen X, etc would do well to check this out as well as any mainstream horror fans. Don't let Bokeem get in the way its definitely worth a view. For an extra treat rent or buy the DVD and check out the audio commentaries.

I don't quite know what to say about "The Breed". It has a serviceable plot compromised by an alternate reality setting. The plot is straightforward enough - vampires and humans attempting to peacefully coexist and a series of murders which may be either a rogue vampire or a more sinister political plot to derail the process. The players are all decent (OK, perhaps Adrian Paul lays it on a little thick), and there are sufficient twists and turns to provide some sense of mystery and/or suspense. To its credit, the characters are well developed and you actually come to care about some of them. It even features a surprisingly engaging romance subplot. How much you can enjoy it, though, depends on how you react to the setting.The setting appears to be an alternate reality version of current-day America. Some scenes confuse the issue by suggesting a European setting, but that doesn't explain the presence of an obviously American black detective. The vibe is strongly influenced by Orwell's "1984". Although references are made to historical events such as race relations in the 60's, WWII, Nazis and the Holocaust, the sense of reality is severely compromised by the setting. TVs all appear to be B&W sets from the 50's and automotive design seems to have stopped evolving in the 40's. Stylistically, it's quite similar to "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" - and that's not a compliment in this case since it's obviously not supposed to be a period piece as "Sky Captain" was. The scenes inside NSA headquarters especially were highly reminiscent of both the 1984 film adaptation of "1984" as well as several "Twilight Zone" episodes.I should also add that I have only seen an edited for TV version broadcast on the SciFi channel. Some other reviews here suggest that the unedited version has some plot problems unrelated to the editing process.Did I enjoy it? Not tremendously, although I did have a grudging appreciation for the audacity of how it was handled. Notably, it presents an interesting and unique version of the entire vampire mythos. Would I recommend it? Not necessarily. As I said, I feel somewhat conflicted about it. I rated it 6 out of 10 and have tried to explain that vote as much as possible. If what I've said hasn't put you off, then give it a try...

With a reasonable budget ($4mm, according to IMDb), atmospheric location shooting in Rumania, and an intriguing premise, The Breed should have been a gem of a vampire flick. Instead, it's a contest between screenwriters Gage and Fletcher's comic book dialogue and Bokeem Woodbine's unfathomably inept lead performance to see who can drive a stake through the heart of this mess first.On the positive side, Adrian Paul convinces as an impressively physical vampire detective. Unfortunately, Ling Bai has zero chemistry with Woodbine, although that's probably not her fault, as nobody seems to. Disappointingly, her beauty gets buried under enough mascara to embarrass Alice Cooper.Director Michael Oblowitz demonstrates a flair for tense shoot-outs. But each time he cranks up the suspense, it takes only a few words from the relentlessly unconvincing Woodbine to obliterate the mood and return the viewer to Square One. This becomes such a routine occurrence, one is torn between frustration and laughter.The screenwriters' insistence on sophomoric "in" references only serves to make matters worse. A doctor named Fleming talks of James Bond and Blofeld, and other characters are named (no kidding) Lucy Westernra, Cross, Orlock, Gray, Seward, and Bathory. If that isn't enough, f-bombs drop everywhere.Needless to say, writers are answerable to directors, directors report to producers, and actors sometimes insist on improvising. So it's hard to know who's to blame for the end result. But ultimately, as another reviewer correctly observed, The Breed can only be enjoyed for what it had the potential to be.

Did anyone else get the vibe, at the start of the movie, that the vampires were a commentary on the Jewish people? Or am I looking too much into a B- movie...? The first glimpse we get of the vampire community is a WW2 style vampire safe house, complete with said period's costumes, and the NSA's costumes are very Nazi-like. And there's the whole 'we fear them because they're a different 'ethnicity'' thing. This may have been a theme started in the movie, but of course, was forgotten as the film underwent several style-changes (by which I mean, it went off on a tangent to rip off some other movies) But yeah, as mentioned above, there were lots of scenes that paid homage to (see...ripped off) Brazil, Blade, The Matrix, Tarantino,..even Highlander. A mucky piece of work, with too many genre stereotypes, and what was with Woodbine's gruff, 'bad boy' voice?