Limbo
**
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre)
Released in the UK by Icon on October 20, 2000; certificate U; 95 minutes;
countries of origin UK/USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Uli Edel; produced by Richard
Claus.
Written by Karey Kirkpatrick, Larry Wilson; based on the novel
by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg.
Photographed by Bernd Heinl; edited by Peter R.
Adam.
CAST.....
Jonathan Lipnicki..... Tony Thompson
Rollo Weeks..... Rudolph
Richard E. Grant..... Frederick
Jim Carter..... Rookery
Alice Krige..... Freda
Pamela Gidley..... Dottie Thompson
Tommy Hinkey..... Bob Thompson
Anna Popplewell..... Anna
Dean Cook..... Gregory
"Have you seen 'The Little Vampire' yet,
Ian?"
"Why? You're not going to see it, are you?"
"Yeah! There's flying cows in it!"
Yes, Vicky, there are flying cows in this movie,
but they don't appear until the last fifteen minutes, they're only onscreen
for ten seconds, the flying isn't very convincing, and it's just the set-up
for a manure joke. If you want to see flying cows, see "Twister". On second
thought -- under no circumstances should I be recommending
"Twister".
Why are there flying cows? Well, the family of
vampires in the movie refrain from feasting on humans, because they live
in hiding in a small Scottish village, and don't want to be hunted down.
The blood they live on comes from the necks of farm animals, and as a consequence
of being bitten, the creatures turn into vampires. Yup, vampire cows. Could
this be the explanation for the CJD phenomenon?
The story involves an American kid named Tony,
played by Jonathan Lipnicki, who was Renee Zellweger's son in "Jerry Maguire".
I'm not convinced the lad can really act -- he rambles off lines in a muffled
voice while constantly grinning -- but he's a cute kid that doesn't fall
into the category of sickeningly cute kids in the movies, because he's so
very very cute. Anyway, Tony has visions about vampires, and then he makes
friends with a young vampire, and goes flying with him and uses him to scare
off bullies, and gets into one of those scenes where he tries to teach him
his own slang. The boys sit and recite words like "dude" and "duh".
Woo-hoo.
Vampire boy's family are looking for a gemstone
that will help them and their clan turn back into humans when a comet passes
by the moon of their local beach, or something, and the movie follows attempts
by Tony and his undead chum to find the piece before it gets into the hands
of a slob 'Vampkiller' played by Jim Carter. If Carter gets the stone, he
can use it to provoke a reverse effect, and send the vampires to hell. You
can imagine how lazy Carter's agent must be if this was the best script he
could find for him after "Shakespeare in Love".
"The Little Vampire" is full of silly, clunky
contraptions, costumes and sets. The vampires and their enemy dress in
pseudo-Hammer Horror bondage-type wear, live in caves full of synthetic cobwebs
and cardboard Gothic artefacts, and Carter rides around in an armoured vehicle
that resembles a bungled task from the "Big Brother" household. I'm being
deliberately lazy and sarcastic in my language because this is such a disposable
picture. There's a fundamental cheapness and blandness about it -- the production
design, the special effects, even the opening titles, are lame and amateurish.
It's not awful... there are unsubtle but amusing moments such as when a farmer
finds all his cows hanging upside down… and it's well-meaning and
inoffensive enough... but it feels like a feature-length piece of Children's
ITV. It's okay time-filler for undiscerning kids, but why take them all the
way to the cinema for something that doesn't take advantage of the big screen?
This movie thinks it's funny to have a xylophone tinkle on the soundtrack
whenever someone nods or shrugs. It's filmmaking at the level of "Sabrina
the Teenage Witch".
The project's most interesting curiosity is that
it was directed by Uli Edel, who made "Body of Evidence", that famously cheesy
sex thriller from 1993 starring Madonna and Willem Dafoe. If I were a child,
I know which movie I'd rather be watching, but hey, maybe that's just
me.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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