As you may know, it has received fairly average reviews and had several rotten tomatoes hurled at it online. I often think that some of these reviewers don't even like paranormal movies and just see them to fulfill their quota. They panned Twilight too, but that movie made a lot of ladies very happy. So here is a review from a fan of the books and also a bit of feedback from a couple of my vampire-loving friends.
Vampire Academy tells the story of Lissa Dragomir, the last of a royal line of Moroi vampires who goes into hiding because someone has attempted to kill her. Her Dhampir guardian, Rose, becomes her blood sister and they are psychically linked. Rose can see visions of Lissa and is sometimes used as her blood source. Dhampirs are half human and can go in the sun unlike the full-blood Moroi vampires. There are also badder vamps called the Strigoi who act a bit like blood-crazed zombies. The escaping friends are tracked down by a bad-ass guardian named Dimitri and returned to their Vampire Academy.
Here is when it all slowed down and got a bit dull for me. The wicked headmistress wasn't really scary and it felt like we were in a regular teen movie like Mean Girls. My recollections of the books made the vampire magic much more exciting, but it is downplayed here. Vampire Academy is not quite as straitlaced and sparkling as Twilight, but neither is it a neck-ripping bloodbath. It's more like a Vampire Diaries hot sexy mess kinda thing.
Thankfully the forbidden relationship between cleavage-baring Rose and her man-mountain instructor Dimitri has some serious chemistry going on. Woo hoo, those two are smoking hot! Lots of long lingering looks and plenty of physical contact during their weapons training make for great viewing.
Here are my friends opinions: 1: "I really enjoyed it but didn't like Dimitri" (what the? Oh well, all entitled to their opinion). 2. "I love, love, love Rose and Dimitri" (oh yeah, me too).
So my advice is to go and see it if you're a fan of the books or like a bit of Twilight or the Vampire Diaries. It's definitely a guilty-pleasure movie for the ladies and I might be seeing it again sometime soon.