Vampire Academy (2014)
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
As adaptations go, it wasn't horrible, but it could have been better. Some things were edited in or out that could have been done better overall. Oscar staying was one step out of line right off the bat as he's supposed to belong to the girl's human house mate before their capture. Rose is downplayed significantly, lacking a lot of her initial bravado and punch starting with how Dimitri takes her down during the capture and ending with her more mild insistence and using Christian as a "seeing eye dog" during the rescue. On the contrary, Dimitri appears more approachable than in the books and even stronger if that initial confrontation is anything to go by, despite the significantly little amount of screen time he actually gets. Lissa also plays a much larger role as the story seems to be told almost more from her perspective with the number of times Rose is "watching" her than from the way Rose sees things in the book. It was neat how they changed Rose's eyes to make it obvious when she was with Lissa, though that also wasn't the impression from the books as most seemed to be rather clueless when it came to the girl's bond. As a stand alone movie, it's amusing, but overall lacks a lot of the draw and appeal that would make it a big success without the fandom base from the books already supporting it. This is rather disappointing as it makes it less likely to see the series finished on the big screen.