Critic Reviews

For smart, strong girls and the guys who like them, Vampire Academy will hit a vein.

The supernatural fight scenes are cheesy and cheap, but this movie is less about epic brawls and more about a headmistress in fabulous dresses, secret meetings with brooding boys in the library, sexualized fang pokes and making wisenheimer comments during prophetic visions.

Well-directed and fun, if not a bit too long and perhaps concerned with a plot that’s not nearly as engaging as its leads, Vampire Academy is a little smarter than your average teen adventure, but it’s certainly not Heathers or Mean Girls.

Tedious as all this vampire exposition is (and there’s a LOT), the jokey tone here is much appreciated, with everyone “a few corpuscles shy of an artery” and the action as predictable as “a porcupine in a hot tub.”

If you're not at the bull's-eye center of the target audience, a movie like this one can suck the life out of you.

What is surprising is that while the patchwork whole creaks terribly in places, the parts also show signs of life.

Fans of the books might enjoy seeing their world brought to life, but most everyone else will likely leave feeling as if they’ve just completed a seminar on vampire lore, and they’re likely to fail any pop quiz that follows.

It’s not a complete disaster, but even the appearance of Gabriel Byrne, as Lissa’s uncle Victor, fails to make much of a dent in the slapdash proceedings.

A film as soul-sucking as any of the fang-baring bores who populate it.

The film is based on a popular series of young-adult books (big surprise), but one figures only die-hard fans will enjoy the result. The movie is slow-witted and moves at a glacial pace.