Movie Review: Underworld

Well, folks, name's Ryan, and I will be your reviewer this evening or until you decide to finish reading this article early because you're completely frustrated with my style or tone, or whatever else your problem is. Now it has been some time since I have written any kind of a review, so, please be gentle and this will be rather easy for both of us.

Underworld, the latest action horror film from Lakeshore Films released just in time for Halloween.

Just in case you've been slumbering in the dank depths of your covers you may not have seen the trailer being played for the last few months. Well, the movie is concerned with Selene, a Death Dealer (a werewolf hunter for the vampires) for seven hundred years of the century long war between vampires and lycans (werewolves, to you and I). Despite having killed the most powerful lycan leader about nine hundred years ago the war has not ceased. Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that the lycans are immortal also, and what distresses the vampires are the older ones who can now transform at will. However, the impending union between the European and American covens will soon put an end to this animal control problem. These conventions seemed odd at first but I was willing to float with them to be entertained.

Beyond that there is not much more to the story, the actors talk about the Romeo and Juliet love story aspect of the film in every interview they have but it is practically nonexistent in the film. Aside from the awkward fumbling and lustful looks from Beckinsale, it's really not there at all. Which is fine because the movie did not need it to function. Other reviewers talk about this not having much of a story, and it does not, but they never talk about the characters or actors. I think this is more of a character based story and not a plot driven story. This works because the two main players and one or two of the supporting characters are rather interesting but the rest are stock and nearly useless. The main drive for the screenwriter seems to be the characters and the conventions of the two warring sides, and how they affect everyone.

Now, what makes this movie so interesting are the conventions that it makes up for the vampire and werewolves; werewolves are immortal too, they are only allergic to silver, so it doesn't take a single silver bullet, but a whole hell of a lot of them. Silver keeps them from regenerating wounds and such. Not much different for the vampires except they are more human this time around. They can bleed out like normal humans, have reflections, and can be knocked out with blunt trauma. Also, taking directly from Anne Rice the eldest of the vampires can sleep for a thousand years, and be reawakened with the blood of the more powerful underlings, but without all the homoerotic undertones of the Anne Rice novels. Beyond these new conventions both sides stick to their stereotypes; vampires are all decadent and lazy, having the selected few actually go out and fight their war for them. The werewolves are the poor deranged animal souls living in the sewers. Going back to the immortal werewolf thing though, I would figure that if you're immortal and can walk around during the day and night then why wouldn't you be able to or want to build a better empire than your enemies?

With the changing of the times comes the changing of the weaponry, like the rest in the genre of action horror films that have recently popped up the heroes, or villains always invent new ways to kill the monsters. This movie is no exception, but unlike Blade and it's sequel Underworld doesn't go off the deep end with the technology. The vampires keep it simple; silver, that's all they need, so they just stick to bullets and blades. The werewolves have been much more lethargic about their weapons, presumably because they like to kill with their bare hands. So the only real leap they have made is in the way of ultra violet bullets, which do look really cool, and cause one of the cooler looking vampire deaths I have seen in quite some time.

Now after all this talk about the weapons and killing you'll want me to talk about the effects of the film. Well, it's sort of a mixed bag here, and literally it is; cgi and prosthetics are used in uneven fashion, and used together in some parts. Most of the deaths and transformations are done with cgi, and some of them look really good while the rest are done cheaply and looked rushed. I know everybody has to be wondering about how the werewolves look. Well, with cgi and in motion they look great (in some parts), but when they use prosthetics for the fully transformed they look really cheap and stiff. There is one scene in the beginning of the film where we see one of the lycans change from human form to his wolf state, and it seemed to me to be a mix of cgi and prosthetic, though I'm not all that sure about it still. As good as it was though it still has not been able to top the transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London. This is hands down the best shape changing scene on film, the scenes in An American Werewolf in Paris were god awful and the artists should be ashamed to think that a cgi shape change could outdo what John Landis did back in the early eighties.
I think that the real problem came with the budget of the film. Because of the architecture and the ability to shoot films cheaply Prague is the new hotspot to shoot films with a stretched budget. Most movies make the most of it, like XXX, while others kind of flounder and pay more attention to the on set pieces, like Blade 2. While I did like Blade 2 (I know I'm in the minority on that one) it just looked cheap because they didn't spend that money on a decent cinematographer or film stock. Underworld did just the reverse of that, they spent the money on film stock, actors and decent cameramen but spread the budget thin over the special effects. So I was pleasantly surprised with how good the film looked up on screen.

The look of the film was handled quite well by first time director Len Wiseman who's prior experience was in the Art Department working for Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. He has a keen eye for the look of a film, but has no idea how to direct actors. The bulk of the supporting characters are either sleepwalking through their parts or just running around with guns. The character Kraven (Shane Brolly) is atrocious, I wanted to smack him and tell him that just because he has fangs doesn't mean that he has to chew all the scenery. The actors with the real talent were able to carry themselves through the film. Beckinsale does quite nicely playing a 700 year old vamp, in some of the battle scenes there are some instances where you can see just how icy she is when dealing with the enemy. The rest of the time she is a different character. Prior to this film Beckinsale has only done period pieces, and I think she relied on that acting for this character. She comes across as a demure lady barely modernized and forward thinking because she is still controlled by the traditions of the vampire covens.

Scott Speedman, most notable for his role on Felicity, surprised me in the film, I never thought he would have any kind of acting talent, I mean, I was mainly trying to find something to hang myself with when one of my exes would make me watch Felicity. He seemed a rather engaging character and was quite comfortable in the role. Which is good, because just like Beckinsale is poised to have a bigger movie career once the old guard of the new hip actors is put out to pasture. The leader of the wolf clan did a fair enough job but didn't hit his stride until just before the end of the film, and when the vampire lord Viktor, played by Bill Nighy was introduced he just oozed charisma. He knows what he is doing when he acts. I believed that this guy was somewhere around three thousand years old but his one failing is that he pays too much attention to the script. By the end of the film he was just yelling out his lines while he was supposed to be portraying the anger of the centuries. Not really his fault because the screenwriter is inexperienced as well.

Mainly this is a film of first efforts, and the creative team does have great potential to make better action horror films. I am typically hard in my criticism of things such as this, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Despite some of the hiccups in direction, plot and acting, the film was fun. I do recommend it for when you're looking to just sit back have fun and have your sense of disbelief be completely thrown out of the window.