A First Look at Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

As I recently wrote on Facebook, yesterday evening I went to the cinema to see the latest instalment in the Underworld franchise and as promised, I’m here to write my initial impressions. It’s a pretty rare occasion to be able to write a post like this, since hardly any werewolf movies are shown in cinemas around these parts (unless they’re part of a more-or-less known series like this one), so I’m pretty happy to be doing this. Also because I haven’t written anything in ages again, but I digress. Now, let’s get this show on the road!

(This is where the spoilers start, so in case anyone thought this would be spoiler-free, cease and desist right here and come back once you’ve seen the movie. Sorry! If you don’t mind being spoiled, though, keep on going.)

First off, if going to this movie you thought it was all over – well, for better or worse, it’s not. Contrary to what the trailers and promotional posters would lead you to believe, this does not seem to be the end of Selene’s tale. If you expected Blood Wars to end with some kind of resolution to the current plotline, then you’re in for a disappointment. The only “peace” that is achieved here is an internal peace among the remaining vampire covens and it very much seems like we are in for another sequel if this one sells well enough. The conflict with the Lycans, which is still the underlying reason for everything that has been happening for a while here, still hasn’t seen any lasting resolution after five movies. But let’s look at things one at a time.

So the basic premise of Blood Wars is this: Selene is still being hunted by both the vampires and the Lycans, but for different reasons – the vampire council wants her caught for her killing Victor and consorting with a Lycan/hybrid a.k.a. Michael, while the Lycans want her because they think she can lead them to her daughter, Eve, whose blood they ultimately want. Problem is, Selene doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know where her daughter is in order to ensure her safety. So why do the Lycans want Eve’s blood so badly? The overall motivation remains the same since the beginning of the franchise – they want their species to evolve (and I mean that as a plural, because they want both the Lycans and the vampires to do that), so that the bloody conflict between the two ‘bloodlines’ could come to an end. As it’s to be expected, the vampires do not want to hear any of this (even if it makes sense) and are bent on winning the war and ensuring the purity of the bloodlines at any cost.

When it comes to Selene, for most of the film she seems to be caught in the middle of all this wishing she could be left alone and in peace. I do kind of get where the writers are coming from with this – after learning that her whole life as a vampire had been based on a lie forged by Victor, becoming an outcast from her own coven, losing Michael and then technically losing her daughter as well, who wouldn’t become all mopey and resigned to their fate? She does recover from all this a little at the end, though, due to the events that transpire.

As we had already known for a while, Scott Speedman would not be reprising the role of Michael in any more Underworld movies, so the writers did the only good thing they could have done with his character, in my opinion, and got rid of him. Yes, in Blood Wars it’s finally confirmed that the Saga of Michael Corvin has come to an end. Seriously, it was high time we were done with Michael – for a while it looked like the writers didn’t know what to do with him, so it’s better this way. After all, since his introduction in Underworld: Awakening, David has been a much better sidekick for Selene than Michael ever was, in my opinion. But the hybrid saga does not end there, since now it seems we’re in the middle of the Eve Saga. While in Underworld it was all about getting to Michael and in Evolution everyone wanted him dead because of him being a hybrid, in Awakening and in Blood Wars it’s all about getting to Eve because she’s a hybrid. In other words, Selene can’t catch a break, because there’s always a person she has to protect.

Finally, I would like to touch on the subject of Lycans themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, we at last have a female Lycan! Like, they really exist. At least it seems so, because, disappointingly, we only get one and it’s for a few short scenes where not much happens and she’s not even given a proper name. So, uh, is that a yay? Yes? Maybe? I guess? But jokes aside… If I want to talk about the Lycans, I have to mention one more thing – if it wasn’t obvious already, it seems that since Awakening the Underworld series has become centred on Selene and the vampires to the point that we are encouraged to root for them. Now, this has become a problem for me, because the original Underworld as well as Rise of the Lycans provided us with a backstory of the vampires’ abuse of their sister race, which gave us a solid reason why some of us could root for them. While at the beginning the reason the Lycans wanted to create hybrids was closely tied to Lucian’s personal revenge on the vampires, now they strive to evolve and perfect their species to secure a lasting peace – of course, that would also mean they would become more powerful than the vampires – and, who knows, perhaps they would exact their revenge on the other faction by wiping them out (and can we really blame them?), but hey, nobody’s perfect. However, all their attempts at achieving this are thwarted in the end by Selene and David who eventually rejoin the Eastern Coven and actually become members of its leadership. In Awakening, Blood Wars (and even Evolution I would say) the franchise has been following a pattern that is quickly becoming predictable and mundane: the Lycans become organised and/or unified under a strong leader, try to evolve/perfect their species, but in order to do that they need something related to Selene and the vampires, so they attack her or the covens, initially it seems like they might actually succeed, but in the end are decimated by the vampires and everything returns to the status quo. And speaking of organisation, at one point Selene remarks that the Lycans are organised and have become a danger to the vampire covens because of a strong leader. She even states that “there has never been a Marius”, which should set off a red light in everyone’s who’s seen all the movies up to this point head, because have the characters already forgotten about Lucian? The last time the Lycans were competent enough to get something done was when they were led by Lucian. So saying there’s never been an (insert name here) is pretty ungrateful to the late Lucian’s memory. Ouch! Not to even mention another striking similarity between Lucian and Marius – the fact they were both romantically involved with members of the vampire coven, which was part of the reason they strived for the unification of the bloodlines, but that’s just a cherry on top. What I was getting at, however, is that in Blood Wars the trend continues, where it appears that the creators are trying very hard for us to root for the vampires only, because we know that whatever the Lycans do, in the end, they will fail.

All in all, Blood Wars is basically more of the same – vampires and werewolves still engage in bloody shoot-outs, the vampires hold out against the Lycans, whose plans inevitably fail, and the whole thing ends on another cliffhanger. I was really hoping that this would be the movie that would tie up the series and bring us a conclusion to the vampire-werewolf conflict, but that just wasn’t meant to be. While there are some good things about it, it just seems like another decent-but-nothing-special instalment in a franchise that probably should have ended already. The effects are okay (they’re pretty much the same as what we saw in Awakening), the music is pretty good, but at some points I thought the acting could have been a little bit better. For example, for the first few scenes after Thomas arrived at the vampire coven I got the impression that Charles Dance was delivering his lines into the air, because it seemed like he didn’t want to make eye contact with any of his supporting cast, but fortunately that soon changed. (I have to say, seeing him engage in a swordfight was one of my favourite moments of the movie.) There were also a couple of awkward scenes that could have been shortened or perhaps omitted altogether. It seemed like the good scenes, although there were many, always ended up being pulled down by the bad/awkward ones. It did seem to happen more at the beginning and towards the middle of the movie, though, and less towards the latter half, fortunately. We also seemed to get fewer Lycan wolf-form scenes than in the previous movies – the reasoning behind this being that the Lycans are paradoxically the weakest when in wolf form because they cannot use weapons and their judgement is clouded too much by bloodlust.

So what would be my verdict on Blood Wars? I would say this – it’s definitely not the worst movie you could go and see right now, but it’s also not the best. I’d say it falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum – it’s a decent action movie to watch if you’re into the monster genre and of course it’s worth seeing if you’ve been a fan of the series. Just don’t expect any fireworks. It could have been worse, but it could have also been better. We will see if the story will continue in time, but until I can whip up a full-fledged review once Blood Wars has come out on Blu-Ray, I will leave you with this.

This whole article is based on my personal opinion after all, so let me know what you thought about the movie in the comments! And if you’ve yet to go see it, I hope you enjoy it anyway regardless of what my impressions were (I mean, I enjoyed it, but not as much as I’d hoped to) – after all, we all like different things and that’s what makes us all awesome. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great day. Take care and I will see you next time!

P.S.

I am still planning on releasing those video reviews, it’s just taking a lot longer than I expected to get everything sorted…

Cinema & TV: Underworld: Evolution (2006) (December 2011 Review)

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Hello and welcome everyone!

Once more I'm afraid I have to bore you with something some of you have probably read before on my other, now disused, blog, The Lycanthropologist's Werewolf Movie Reviews, which has been incorporated into Werewolf Theory's main page. For that I'm sorry, but, as I probably mentioned before, I'm already working on something new to post. In the meantime, however, I will keep adding old articles from the old Werewolf Theory website, just to gather them all in one place. 

At the same time, I hope that those who haven't read my post on Underworld: Evolution before will enjoy my rambling at least a little :)

Since I am now part of Amazon’s Affiliate program, you can support me by purchasing a copy of your own of Underworld: Evolution from Amazon! Should my analysis and review spark your interest in the movie – or should you want to view it yourself before reading this article – please consider renting or buying it using the link provided next to this message. Simply click on the cover of the movie on the right-hand side and you will be sent to Amazon Video’s page for this title. Thank you and enjoy!

* * *

This is a cleaned-up, but otherwise unchanged version of the December 2011 review.

Hello and welcome to another dose of shapeshifting extravaganza!

This time with a bit of delay, but still here, as promised we come back to the Underworld series to take a look at the second instalment in the franchise – Underworld: Evolution. It took three years for the creators of the first movie to film a sequel and whether it turned out good or bad for them, we will see soon enough. Looking at the runtime on my player, I can see that the length of the movie has only shortened by 15 minutes, so I guess we’re in for another long review this time. So let’s not waste any time – welcome to

No animals were harmed during the filming of this movie. Werewolves don’t count.

Summary

Michael and Selene are on the run due to the events of the first movie, while Marcus, the sole surviving elder of the vampire coven, awakens and embarks on his own quest to find out the truth of the past events. In order to do that, he seeks Selene’s blood. At the same time, a secret group of humans is trying to track down Michael. Along the way, little by little we learn more about the events that caused the feud between the vampires and the werewolves and find out what outcome the past actions of the protagonists have in the present and what they lead them to. And that’s more or less all I can say without spoiling the plot.

In-depth Analysis & Synopsis

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Wait, that’s a whole different story! But this movie also opens up with rolling credits that explain to the viewer the background story of what they’re about to see. You know, in case they didn’t see the first movie, the creators thought it would be a nice idea to summarise its plot in those twenty-or-so lines. And they succeeded. While the credits are rolling, we can hear the sounds of battle in the background and are soon transported to…

SKYRIM! Well… no, not exactly. But the age is rather long past, as we follow the events in the year 1202 A.D. In the very first scene, we see Bill Nighy makes a return as Viktor, however, our happiness is short-lived because he features only in the prologue. We can see Viktor, Amelia and Marcus, two former of whom are already dead in the movie’s main storyline, find a village that has been ravaged by Marcus’ brother William, the first and most powerful Lycan, and his minions. It appears that, in spite of being the first Vampire, Marcus is paradoxically not their current leader, why I do not know, since he bows down to Viktor and his judgment. Has it already been so long that the vampires needed to make a rotation? And even if so, why isn’t Marcus asleep then? Unfortunately, as we continue watching the movie, there are no answers given to my questions.

In this universe, it is so that werewolfism apparently works like undeath in the Warcraft series. Those bitten or even killed for that matter by William and his minions, don’t stay dead but come back to life as werewolves. And they do so very fast. Somebody either mixed up lycanthropy with undeath or – knowingly or not – unearthed a very old belief that has all but got pushed out by modern tendencies that people could come back from death as either vampires or werewolves. This belief stemmed from the fact that even after death human nails and hair keep growing still for a while, which created fear in people’s hearts that the buried ones could indeed be still alive, or rather undead. But as a viewer unversed in werewolf lore, this fact is just served on a plate and we are made to believe it and take it merely as a distinction between the ‘William’ breed of Lycans and the Lycans from the main storyline of the movie. Another thing that differentiates these two types of Lycans is their appearance – the William Lycans are a lot more furry than their modern counterparts, but also, as we learn later on, have no control over their bodies, which makes them mindless blood-thirsty beasts that attack everything in sight, just like their leader and creator, William. For this reason the vampires want to capture William, to prevent him and his minions from destroying further villages. They finally find him in the woods nearby and after a demanding struggle eventually manage to restrain him.

Fluffy fellow, isn’t he? He reminds me of the werewolf in Bad Moon, but that’s a story for another time. Just like his minions, William does not transform back into his human form and does not have any control over himself. Unlike his fellow vampires, Marcus is adamant about William being unharmed, still having feelings for his brother in spite of what he’s become. Viktor, who would rather have William killed, then orders for him to be imprisoned for all eternity.

Thus ends the prologue and we come back to the present where once again, like in the first movie, we are welcomed by Selene’s monologue. I get the feeling that I’d prefer it if the movie had stayed the way it was in the prologue… Again, for those who haven’t seen the first movie, we are given flashbacks to what occurred in it. In 2 minutes she gives us a summary of a 2-hour-long movie and I have to say she does it accurately. Her quest now, as she informs us, is to awaken Marcus from hibernation and explain the situation to him before Kraven, our favourite cardboard character from the first movie gets to murder him while he’s still asleep. Along with Michael, she breaks into a vampire interrogation facility where they find a chained dead Lycan who’s supposedly been dead for weeks, yet shows no signs of decay. Sense? None. Also, Michael remarks that he thought Lycans came back to their human forms after death, which Selene agrees to, which is another piece of bullshit right at the start of the movie, because nothing in the previous film showed us any proof they did – every fallen Lycan stayed in their werewolf form and did not change back. Great, 10 minutes into the movie and the plot’s already  inconsistent…

When Selene restocks on weaponry to return to the vampire mansion, Kraven is already there and orders his men to lift the coffin in which Marcus is supposedly sleeping. Much to his disappointment, however, they find it empty as Marcus has already been awakened by the Lycan doctor’s blood.

Oh look, it’s batman! I mean, man-bat… In this form, Marcus erupts from underground and kills off Kraven’s men one by one. Conveniently aware of everything that happened during the events of the first movie due to the blood memory plot point, Marcus does us a favour and disposes of Kraven by slicing his head off. A mediocre end of a mediocre character.

A quarrel between Selene and Michael whether he stays or goes with her after, we are introduced to a third party that plays a more significant role than Michael in the former movie – humans. On their ship at sea, quite luxurious at that, lands a helicopter with a team that then gives a recount of what happened in the first movies from another perspective to their elderly leader who as of yet we don’t know much. It is explained that the witnesses of the underground shoot-out from the beginning of the first movie have been ‘silenced but otherwise unharmed’ (in a way that is not explained). So we needed to wait 3 years for the second movie to clear up plot holes from the first movie. Yeah. The team also appears to have recovered Viktor’s body from the scene of the first movie’s finale, for what purpose we don’t yet know. Also from their report we learn that the awakened Marcus has destroyed the coven and the mansion. So I guess Selene will be confronted with a rather unpleasant surprise when she finds it on fire.

We then see that Marcus has gone on a sight-seeing trip around the city (whose name or location we still don’t know!) to places from the first movie, whether to better understand the memories that have been passed to him or not I can’t tell.

Subsequently, we learn that the human team recovered not only Viktor’s body, but apparently all of the bodies, including that of Lucian and Amelia. The leader of the humans seems distressed when he finds that the amulet Lucian was wearing around his neck is gone and goes on to examine Viktor’s body. From under Viktor’s skin, he extracts an object which looks a bit like a fancy ashtray made of gold, but which resembles something that would very well fit together with Lucian’s amulet. We all like puzzles, right? Especially ones whose parts are hidden away in bodies. Jigsaw would be proud.

Back at the safe house, Michael is having a moral dilemma whether or not to drink artificial blood in order to sustain himself since Selene told him that normal food could prove lethal to him since he’s a hybrid and nobody knows how his body will react. So why make him drink blood if you don’t know what will happen? Michael then decides to pay no heed to Selene’s words, comes out of the hiding place and goes into an inn in a nearby village to order food. While he’s there, I was trying to make out the language the people were speaking, but couldn’t recognize it. By their looks, though, the uniformed men seemed either Russian or Romanian. But that wouldn’t make any sense since the other doctors in the hospital where Michael used to work also spoke English, just like our protagonists. I’m guessing the question of ‘where’ is a too detailed one to ask. Actually, when Michael’s eating, there is a television broadcast in which the presenter is speaking a language that is definitely not English. Why did the other doctor at Michael’s hospital speak English then? Plot convenience? The dissonance between the main characters speaking English and all their surroundings having a totally separate language begins to strike me more and more.

Anyway, after a few bites Michael finds out that his hybrid stomach doesn’t like human food. He throws up and for some reason begins unwillingly transforming into his hybrid form. He fights off the guards who try to capture him since he’s now a wanted person (I don’t know for what reason now because the policemen in the first movie who were also looking for him were put there by the Lycans). At the time, Selene, on her way to the mansion, notices Marcus flying above the treetops in the opposite direction and drops her plans of visiting the coven since the target of her quest has just passed her by. An emergency call from one of the policemen is then intercepted by the humans on the ship and their team is dispatched to Michael’s location. Great, another party is looking for him. I guess that’s all he’s good for. No wonder he’s not there anymore in the upcoming fourth movie.

So just in time, Selene comes to his rescue and saves his behind, but right after they escape one posse, they run into another person wanting to have a word with them. It’s Marcus, who’s caught up with them and who seems to be running an errand of his own among the various subplots. This is sometimes an impression I get of this movie, that every character here acts on their own separate errands, but fortunately for the movie all these errands turn out to be somehow related to the general, superior plotline. It appears that Marcus has embarked on a campaign of his own after learning of Viktor’s and Kraven’s deeds – he suspects that Viktor murdered Selene’s family for a reason, to conceal something from him. In order to learn what it was, Marcus forcefully tries to bite Selene who was the sole survivor of that night, but he is prevented from doing so by Michael packing a bunch of bullets into his head and chest. Running away from Marcus, Selene and Michael hijack a truck on which Michael and Marcus then have a fight in which Marcus attempts to take away Lucian’s amulet from the former. Michael’s hybrid form seems to have evolved in this movie (get it? Evolved) and now looks something like this:

Which is a bit more plausible for a hybrid compared to what he looked like in the first movie, with basically his skin colour being different and him having claws and black eyes. After the fight we learn that Marcus is apparently also a hybrid like Michael. Hah! And the stupid, stupid me thought that he could fly around in a man-bat form maaaaaaybe because he was the BLOODY FIRST AND MOST POWERFUL VAMPIRE. But the question is, why is he a hybrid? Because of the fact he absorbed the Lycan doctor’s blood? But how does that make sense? According to the first movie, only a direct and untainted (a.k.a. human) descendant of Alexander Corvinus was able to mutate into a hybrid after absorbing both the vampire and werewolf virus. The doc even said that Marcus would not be eligible for it because he was already a vampire. So unless they mean a different, unmentioned so far, kind of hybrid, this puts the whole integrity of the first movie’s plot in question.

After a great deal of gunfire and even trying to grind him to a pulp against the cliff wall they finally manage to fend off Marcus, but if that wasn’t enough, the sun is just about to rise and Selene is probably the least happy person in the world about it. Somehow they manage to find an abandoned, it seems, warehouse, but unfortunately it has windows, like most warehouses do. Michael then, in sloooooow-mooootioooooon, throws a sheet-like material over the truck’s windscreen to shield Selene from the sunlight and… proceeds to splash the windows with black paint he found on the workbenches after opening the cans’ lids with his claws. This is so stupid I won’t even begin to describe it, especially that it’s made to look epic and heroic, because he’s trying to save Selene from getting burned to a crisp. HOWEVER, wouldn’t it be MUCH easier if he wrapped her in that big sheet he threw onto the truck and moved her to the closed storeroom he ANYWAY moves her to after he’s done with the windows?? Even more so that he doesn’t manage to cover all the surface of the windows with the paint so there’s still sunlight coming in. But no, he then decides to cover only her head with the sheet and walk her to a nearby cargo container. Anyway, a totally unneeded slow-motion sex-scene follows. Jesus, even the sex-scene, now that I think about it, looks like the sex-scene in the Matrix series. I am so disappointed. Both in the fact you put a sex-scene into this movie totally out of the blue (because we need to have a sex-scene to make the movie more attractive, right? Dayum, you’re grasping.) and that it looks like the one in the second? I think? Matrix movie. I mean, it was obvious that Michael and Selene have something going on between each other, but a fade-out kissing scene would have been enough. What purpose does that scene serve, I mean? To show that vampires, too, can f***? Unless Selene finds out she’s pregnant in the upcoming fourth movie, I call this scene bullshit. Goddammit, it’s been only 37 minutes and there’s already so much bullshit in this movie… Oh, and did I mention Selene apparently has no underwear beneath that latex suit? Ouch, that must be uncomfortable!

As the sun sets yet again, we see then that the human squad from the ship comes to recover the body of the dead Lycan and blow up the interrogation bunker from before. More importantly, Selene accidentally pushes the gem in the centre of Lucian’s medallion, which makes ragged plates pop out at the corners. After that, Selene experiences a vision of children laughing and painting things on a wall of a further unspecified place. One of the girls is seen holding the same amulet in her hand. It is then revealed that those were Selene’s memories as she tells Michael she remembers the amulet from her childhood. Apparently she also has NO further memories at all of her connection to the amulet, nothing about the circumstances in which she came to hold it, nothing about the place, nada.

Because of which the two of them decide to pay a visit to a banished vampire historian who, in spite of being an outcast, seems to be living quite a pleasant life in the company of his vampire mistresses. The only funny and ironic thing about it is that the place where he’s hiding used to be a monastery and that he’s making out with them on the altar. Needless to say, Tannis, for that is his name, is unhappy to see Selene, the one who had once banished him, on his doorstep, so he lures Selene into a trapdoor and unleashes chained werewolves at her and one other at Michael outside. During the fight, Selene kills two of them by stabbing them in the head with a hunting knife. It seems we have fallen quite low from needing to shoot werewolves with silver bullets to stabbing them with knives, haven’t we, Selene? Brain damage seems to be equally effective though, so let’s move on. When Michael deals with the remaining werewolves, Selene takes out the mistresses and finally confronts Tannis. They learn that his Lycan bodyguards were a gift from Lucian who was trading anti-vampire weaponry with Tannis. Damn, there goes my theory of Lycans being smart enough to produce weapons. Goddamn you, you discriminating movie!

As they talk, we see that Marcus goes to feed on horse blood in order to regain some more of his strength. Tannis then informs Selene that Viktor wasn’t the first vampire, “as he has lead us to believe” and that it was Marcus who was the first original vampire… Wait, what? WHAT? THERE IS A WHOLE STORY ABOUT MARCUS AND WILLIAM, THE TWO SONS OF CORVINUS, BEING THE FIRST OF THEIR KINDS REPEATING ITSELF OVER THE COURSE OF TWO MOVIES AND YOU STILL HAVE TO STATE THE OBVIOUS?? How stupid are the vampires? They seriously adopted Viktor’s word for him being the first vampire as truth without any question? With Marcus alive? And over the span of so many centuries no-one completely thought about asking? No-one had doubts? BULLSHIT. So anyway, the legend proves to be true and we learn that it was Marcus who offered Viktor to become a vampire, the latter in return lending Marcus an army of vampires so that he could defeat his twin brother, William. Asked why the captured William was left alive, Tannis answers that Viktor feared that killing either William or Marcus would lead to the death of all those in their bloodline, meaning, basically all werewolves and vampires. Or at least that’s what Viktor made everyone believe, but at the same time was too afraid to put to a test.

We then learn that it was Selene’s father who was commissioned by Viktor to build a special prison in order to contain William and that’s the reason why Selene has memories of her connection to Lucian’s medallion. Her family was murdered years later when Lucian escaped from under the vampire rule, because her father knew the exact location of the prison and Lucian was in possession of the medallion – the key to its opening. That said, Selene is the last living person who knows the location of the prison, not consciously, but the memory is stored away in her blood, which is the reason why Marcus is now after her. By the way, what unsettles me in those flashbacks is that, since Selene’s father was ginger and she is shown as a fair-haired girl, how come she has such jet-black hair now? I mean, I used to have much lighter hair as a kid, but that’s a bit too much of stretching it. Were you really unable to find a pretty dark-haired girl at the time, guys? Tannis then tells Selene he doesn’t know why exactly Marcus is looking for William’s prison now, but that he knows someone who might and they agree to arrange a meeting. When Selene and Michael are off, Tannis has yet a new guest visiting, this one even more troublesome than the previous – Marcus. As we can expect, Marcus learns everything that has happened by sucking out Tannis’ blood and is now also headed to the ship of Lorenz Macaro.

Selene shows the medallion-key to Lorenz Macaro, who is not really who he seems. Seeing the signet on his hand, Selene connects the dots in her mind and comes to a conclusion that Macaro is, in fact, none other than Alexander Corvinus – the first immortal of legends. He then explains how for centuries, he’s the one who’s been cleaning up ‘the mess’ after his two sons, but was never able to put a stop to it because of his fatherly love for them. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Marcus in his man-bat form who decides to take revenge on Michael first for their fight on the truck and so he IMPALES him on the metal railings on the pier where the ship is docking and takes away Lucian’s medallion. Seeing this, Selene becomes enraged but is no match for Marcus who then gorges himself in her blood, learning the location of William’s prison. After Marcus flies away, Selene desperately tries to save Michael by pouring her blood into his wounds but it seems to have no effect. Wait… he’s dead? The most powerful of all, a vampire-werewolf hybrid got owned like a little bitch just like that? Let me just say this in his memory – Michael died as he lived – A SIDEKICK MINOR CHARACTER. At least that’s one thing out of the way, rejoice! Because come on, this story was never about him. He was just a subplot throughout.

While Selene’s moping, Marcus comes to pay a visit to his father. He complains to him how he let William ‘suffer alone in darkness’ for the last 500 years and wants Viktor’s key. Since Corvinus is unwilling to give it to him, afraid of the world being overrun by William’s breed of werewolves, it takes Marcus to skewer his father with his own sword to take it away from him. At the same time, Marcus states he wants to become the god of a new world in which there will be no distinction between vampires and werewolves, only hybrids. Great, another hybrid-obsessed character, just what we needed… So the dying Corvinus refuses accepting medical help from his subordinates and decides he’s tired with the world and prefers to leave it just as he is most needed, but first orders for Selene to see him. He then offers his blood to her, saying that by drinking it she will become the future and apparently will have less trouble in defeating Marcus. After that, she leaves with Corvinus’ squad on a helicopter to the location of the prison (which I guess she now remembers all of a sudden? Or she sucked it out with Corvinus’ blood? See, it’s not stated in the movie.). Also, apparently Michael is NOT DEAD because she took him with them and seems relieved after checking for his heartbeat. And there I was so happy that the movie finally corrected one of its biggest mistakes… So as they approach the ruins of a big castle in the mountains where William’s prison is located, Selene remembers about there being an underwater passage leading inside it.

In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came… That voice which calls to me and speaks my name… And do I dream again? For now I find the Phantom of the Opera is there, inside my mind.

Since there is nowhere a helicopter can land, that is the course of action the squad decides on. Fortunately, with their versatility they are prepared for any kind of circumstances. I bet they’d have suits for swimming in lava too on that chopper. They also equip their guns only with UV-rounds – not like there will be a werewolf there if Marcus manages to free William, will there?

Well, guess what, totally unexpectedly, Marcus is already there, ready to free the werewolf dummy, I mean, William. William, however, doesn’t seem too happy that his brother has come to free him and charges at him, I think much to Marcus’ disappointment. He must have been an idiot if knowing that his brother is a mindless beast and having seen the havoc he wrought upon the townsfolk back in the 13th century he still hoped that maybe, just maybe William developed human feelings and most of all conscience over the span of those 500 years of total darkness.

After all this time, William could probably use a mint or two…

By the way, why the hell is his head so goddamn BIG? I mean, look at him, he’s totally disproportional. His torso is short, his hands are short and his legs are long, but the head makes him look as though he could collapse under its weight at any moment. Oh, did I mention he also has blank eyes? What, is he blind or something? Why, just why? So that he looks more creepy? Well, with such a big head he looks more grotesque than scary. Also, Marcus, that hand of yours might not be enough to keep him at a distance…

When Selene and the humans arrive at the Scene of the Movie’s Finale, Marcus is already done with freeing William. The squad is then ambushed both by William and Marcus and for a moment the movie turns into Dog Soldiers… But that’s also a story for a different occasion.

William would hereby like to say hello to the werewolf from “Bad Moon”

Selene then fights Marcus, showing him that she is now stronger than before thanks to Alexander Corvinus’ blood, but she still resorts to gunfire as the tool that solves all problems. Well, as if she hasn’t learned that lesson ten times over before, it does not. Using Viktor’s key, she manages to separate Marcus by closing the prison door in front of him. Imperfectly, though, because some fallen rocks happen to prevent the door from being shut completely, which later on will enable Marcus to escape. In the meantime, we see that Michael regenerates and comes back to his senses on board the helicopter. During that time, the soldiers are then caught in a trap and are rendered helpless because they only brought UV-rounds. Because preparing for the worst scenario in which Marcus manages to free William is STUPID. If I were Selene, I would have only one thing to say to this:

So one by one, the soldiers get wiped out by William (man, this really is like Dog Soldiers) until it’s just him and Selene. Again, gunfire doesn’t do much about the werewolf, but I guess that the scenes where Selene reloads her magazines by hitting the guns against each other was the reason for this whole shooting scene. In an attempt to defeat William, Selene blows a great hole in the ceiling of the castle, which will become important in a moment. When William escapes, Selene salvages a new gun from her fallen companions. Because in these movies almost all vampires are useless without guns. However, a new problem arises. Remember that plot point about original lycanthropy being like undeath? Well, the makers of the movie also now remembered about it and all the soldiers that were just killed by William now come back to life and transform into werewolves.

Great. In the first movie we had gargoyle-werewolves. Now we have CGI gorilla-werewolves. I apologise I ever said a bad word about the gargoyle-werewolves… Anyway, while this is happening, Michael gets back on his feet and, literally, dives into the action from the helicopter through the hole Selene made in the roof, conveniently. Their sweet reunion is interrupted by the Voice of the Audience, I mean, William who appears out of the blue and attacks Michael. Well, maybe he’s just jealous. At the same time I am tortured by the stock sounds used in William’s roar since I’ve heard them so many times before it makes me want to puke. When William is slowly overwhelmed by gunfire from Selene and the guys in the chopper (Michael is useless again), Marcus finally gets out of the prison and joins in the fight and does the one most awesome thing in this movie – he pulls down the helicopter by the chain on which Michael jumped down into the castle, aiming it at Selene.

He tried to kill me with a... chopper!

Compared to that, singing “He tried to kill me with a fork-lift” seems pretty unimpressive. Also, damn those blades are made of diamond – they cut through everything, rock, metal, wood, and they keep going! So then Michael takes on William under the bridge while Selene fights Marcus above them. Also, Marcus seems to have lost his wings somewhere, don’t know where and why, but he did. As always, Michael gets his ass kicked by William before he does a Matrix jump behind the werewolf and rips his head off with his bare hands. An ungrateful death for someone who’s spend 500 years confined in a prison on the backside of beyond and been released only about 15 minutes before. And in addition, he got killed off by a mediocre character like Michael. This, obviously, angers Marcus who suddenly remembers he can sprout wings and having done that he skewers Selene with one of them. But as she is stronger now, she snaps the wing in two and stabs Marcus through the jaw and the head with its other part, subsequently pushing Marcus into the propeller which turns him into salsa. Conveniently, this proves to be as much as the propeller can take, because just after that it creaks and stops spinning. Plot convenience, hoooo!

So then the sun rises on the whole scene, where the first vampire and first werewolf are dead and gone, so the viewers are faced with a question of whether or not the bloodlines have been severed. Rays of sunlight fall on Selene’s hand without burning her, but she hasn’t become a human, she’s still a vampire, a daywalker now it seems thanks to Corvinus’ blood. With a kiss that would have been a sufficient replacement for the sex-scene, the movie ends with music that reminds me of the Matrix and Selene’s monologue again in which she foretells of an ‘unknown chapter’ that lies ahead – a continuation. Roll credits.

Impressions & Evaluation

Where do I start… I have seen Underworld: Evolution at least three times now, but however much I try I just can’t get myself to like it. I never thought I’d say this, but the first movie was actually better than this one in spite of its being a werewolf version of The Matrix. Obviously, this movie doesn’t have annoying characters like Kraven, but Kraven’s place seems to have been taken by Michael who is the most useless of all the characters. From what I felt, he serves the purpose of Selene’s sidekick and obligatory love interest, a guard dog that goes everywhere with her and gets beat up over it. He’s supposed to be the most powerful creature of all, since he’s a hybrid, yet he can’t hold his own in a real fight, his victories being more lucky than achieved through power and skill. If he had any personality in the first movie, in the sequel he seems to have lost all of it. He’s there because he needs to be there, because the story has obviously already turned all the way towards Selene as the protagonist and it is her story that makes people want to watch the movie. Michael is just a fly on the wall in comparison.

There is a lot more CGI here than in the first movie, especially when it comes to expendable werewolves, but William’s model and Marcus’ man-bat form are mainly physical, which is good. Oh, and did I mention that there is NO modern-day Lycans in this movie? Everyone seems to have totally forgotten about Lucian’s followers, who, in turn, seem to have vanished into thin air after his death. I guess incorporating a Lycan-related subplot would only confuse the movie when it’s already trying to show us everything at the same time. Or maybe that’s something Mr Len Wiseman left to expand in the fourth movie.

When it comes to the music, there’s not much of it again, and if there is any it’s not something that would create a lasting impression on the viewer. If someone asked me to hum some music from Underworld I’d probably reply: “What music?” Apart from that, there seem to be a lot more plot inconsistencies and flops in the sequel than in the first movie, some of them quite hilarious and embarrassing. Also, plot convenience seems to be creeping more and more inside, which is a very bad thing a movie can allow. I know nothing beats werewolves running on walls, but let’s be serious. Oh, and you know what this movie lacks? Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen. Their places have been taken by Derek Jacobi (Alexander Corvinus) and Tony Curran (Marcus) however, whose performance I gotta say I like. Along with Selene, they’re the main characters of the movie, but as it eventually turns out (second movie in a row) the two other main characters apart from Selene are in the end expendable.

What I will give the Underworld movies credit for is a plotline that is more complex than most of other werewolf movies, which makes it distinct. That’s a plus. However, even with a good idea, if the execution goes wrong at some point, it cannot be viewed as a pearl. All in all, Underworld: Evolution is an action movie if by action you understand pretty women in latex suits firing countless rounds from machine guns in order to kill vampires and werewolves. When I put it like that, it smells like Van Helsing. Though, wait, they didn’t have guns there, did they? Never mind. The one thing that is better in the sequel though is the fact that the amount of Matrix references and look-alike scenes has dropped significantly compared to the first movie. But however you look at it, it’s still Selene-Trinity shooting monsters. So if you felt like you wasted two hours of your life after watching Underworld, then this movie is definitely not for you.

6/10

And that’s about it for the month, thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed what you read and as always feel free to submit comments, suggestions below, vote in the poll. You can always subscribe to updates by email, add me to your favourites, or follow me on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/MangBloodrage. At the same time I would like to wish you all a merry, merry Christmas and a happy new year. And if you’re not planning on partying, I hope you spend it pleasantly with some nice werewolf movies. And after that, we’ll be back in January with a review of the third instalment in the Underworld series, this time a prequel to the main storyline, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

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Cinema & TV: Underworld (2003) (November 10th, 2011 Review)

Click here to view details about this
movie, rent, or buy it on Amazon Video.

Right from the start, I apologise that I keep throwing old stuff here that many have probably seen before, but since The Lycanthropologist's Werewolf Movie Reviews is now incorporated into Werewolf Theory, I simply want to have everything gathered in one place. HOWEVER, I am beginning to work on a new article which I am hoping to finish soon :)

Since I am now part of Amazon’s Affiliate program, you can support me by purchasing a copy of your own of Underworld from Amazon! Should my analysis and review spark your interest in the movie – or should you want to view it yourself before reading this article – please consider renting or buying it from Amazon Video using the link in the movie's poster. Simply click on the cover of the movie on the right-hand side and you will be sent to a page listing all the offers related to it! Thank you and enjoy!

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This is a cleaned-up, but otherwise unchanged version of the 2011 review.

Hello and welcome to yet another dose of shapeshifting extravaganza!

So, another full-moon is in the sky (although I can't see it through the thick clouds, but I know it's there!) and I’ve got another werewolf  movie review. Originally, I planned on reviewing a completely different movie, however in the course of the month those plans happened to change. Why? Because during my latest visit to my hometown cinema I came across something unexpected, which however I must have subconsciously known would eventually come to pass. Namely, I saw a the trailer of the fourth now instalment of the Underworld franchise. Yes, you heard me, two years ago we had a prequel to the story and now we’ll be going back to what happens next after the sequel (confusing much?). That is why, since Underworld: Awakening will be hitting the cinemas on January 20th 2012, I decided to undertake the task of reviewing all the previous parts of the series so that when you go see the new movie, you will know what did – or did not – happen in the previous productions.

So without any further ado, here’s

To be honest, it’s quite cheeky to call your movie ‘underworld’ with the actual mess the characters bring about by their actions to the ‘overworld’, so to say, of the humans in the opening scenes… But have I said too much? I guess it’s always better to start from the beginning.

Directed by Len Wiseman (who later on directed the fourth part of the Die Hard franchise, Live Free or Die Hard), starring Kate Beckinsale (nota bene, current wife of the director) as the main character vampire Selene (known earlier for her roles in Pearl Harbor and Serendipity), whom the movie established as an action movie star and who we shall see a little later on in another werewolf-related movie, Van Helsing; Michael Sheen (who, for a change, has his veins full of wolf blood and is an ex-husband of Kate Beckinsale – gee, this movie is becoming like a family business venture, don’t you think?) as the werewolf leader Lucian, a predominantly theatrical actor who after Underworld ended up cast in movies like Tron: Legacy, Midnight in Paris, and… COUGH… The Twilight… COUGH… Saga;  and finally our old favourite Bill Nighy as the vampire leader Victor, known for his performance in Love Actually and later on cast in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Valkyrie, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – Part 1, and who will inevitably make me want to burst into a particular Christmas song every time I see him on screen during the upcoming reviews; the movie was a box office success and continues to bring profit to its creators with every new production. This, however, doesn’t mean it was all that successful in other respects, for film critics didn’t respond to it in too much of a positive way, rewarding it with a mere 30% approval score at Rotten Tomatoes. Another curious matter about the production is the lawsuit filed by White Wolf, Inc. who accused the movie of being far too similar to the setting of their games – Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse – and some of their novels. Fortunately for Underworld, however, the lawsuit ‘ended in a confidential settlement’. Yes. Would be a bit of a waste if a movie with a $22,000,000 budget could never appear in theatres, wouldn’t it. And who knows, maybe otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this now.

Alright, seems to me that this will be one hell of a long review, so maybe I should start controlling myself from now on to actually make it in time.

Summary

Underworld tells us the story of a long-lasting war between vampires, here referred to as Death Dealers, and werewolves, here known by the name of Lycans (a shortened version of the word ‘lycanthropes’). The plot revolves mostly around the struggles of the main character, a female vampire by the name of Selene (subtle as a truck naming her like this, good thing she’s not a werewolf), who is driven to war not only because of her affiliation but also because of her desire to avenge the death of her family, who eventually falls in love with Michael, a seemingly ordinary human. Now, I know what you’re thinking… and it’s not like that, so STOP.

After Michael’s significance to both factions is revealed, the war enters and even more intense stage, leading the main character to find out the truth about her past that she’d never have imagined.

In-depth Analysis

So we open up with Selene’s monologue which introduces us to the background of the movie. We’re informed that for more than six centuries, the vampire and werewolf clans have been at war with each other and the struggle has persisted till the present day in spite of the werewolf leader having been presumably killed in a battle a few centuries back. As one of the Death Dealers (vampires), Selene is under orders to exterminate every Lycan (werewolf) she and her fellow vampires come across. After confirming their target with another vampire, Selene jumps down the skyscraper atop of which she was sitting onto the wet streets of a yet undisclosed modern city. Which leads me to my first pesky remark – I understand that it’s supposed to be awesome when she touches the ground without any harm in her platform boots and the heavy music begins to play, but… How does one jump off a skyscraper onto a street crowded with pedestrians rushing back and forth without being seen? Granted, the moment she comes down, the street is shown as empty, but she lands just next to a junction and the previous scenes showed the streets being filled with people. Oh, well.

Next up, we follow two Lycans who in turn are following some other guy who’s apparently not aware of that fact. Into the subway we go, already noticing hints that there is a trap set for our characters. After a short few moments, the Lycans spot the Death Dealers following them and take out their… machine guns! I guess that’s part of their being undercover while among humans. Quite a long shoot-out follows, with the vampires chasing the werewolves through the train and then the corridors of the underground. We get to that the vampires are using silver bullets against the Lycans, which seem to burn the latter’s flesh and need to be extracted as soon as possible. Otherwise, it seems no harm comes to the werewolves of this movie from gunshot wounds.  The movie shows that it won’t hide what it’s got when as early as the 7th minute we get to see the first werewolf transformation.

So basically from these few scenes we get to see what we’re dealing with here. Forget about fluffy werewolves, the ones here are mostly bald bipedal human-wolf hybrids that can change their appearance very fast, and at will. Did I forget to mention that? Yes, during her entrance monologue Selene also informs us that somehow – it’s not stated how yet – the Lycans have over the centuries developed the ability to shapeshift at will, without the need of a full-moon, as well as retain their consciousness during the time they’re in their werewolf form. Pretty convenient, eh?

After a short battle scene, we shift back to Selene who finds a discarded silver bullet which the other werewolf took out of his wound (ouch) and… What? Are you serious? When she turns around, we hear the howling of a wolf… which is exactly the same howl that was used in my previously reviewed An American Werewolf in London. Is this an homage to the movie? Or is it just a stock sound that the director chose at random? Either way, the connection is made – there’s a part of the American Werewolf in Underworld. Also, suddenly there’s not a living soul in the underground, no police, no anything, even the people who were wounded in the gunfight have disappeared. Whatever…

As Selene jumps into the sewers below the subway, she gets ambushed by the Lycans. She manages to kill one after packing ten or more silver bullets into his chest and wound the other with what looks like round silver shurikens, and finds strangely glowing, fluorescent bullets inside the gun that belonged to the dead werewolf.

Running away from the Lycan through the sewers, Selene hears the sound of a large number of voices somewhere above her. As it turns out, they belong to a pretty big gathering of Lycans who are cheering on two other of their fellows while staging what looks like an underground boxing match. The difference being the two contestants aren’t really boxing, but are fighting each other in their wolf forms.

I have to say this – from the glimpse that we get from beyond the backs of the spectators, our werewolves look more like gargoyles than wolves. Gargoyle-werewolves are now officially a category >.> Also, what the hell is wrong with the waist of the guy in the above picture?... So anyway, the fight continues until Michael Sheen appears at the scene, proclaiming his entrance with a gunshot that silences everyone else around and makes the two fighters revert back to their human form. He criticises the surrounding Lycans saying they’re ‘acting like a bunch of rabid dogs’ and assuring them that such behaviour won’t help them win the war against the vampires. Basically, this establishes the character of the leader of the werewolves for the viewers.

After that, we get to see the quarters of the vampires, who (obviously) live in a huge Victorian mansion on a private property sealed off from the rest of the world with an automatic gate. Selene barges in and shows the bullets she found to the vampire armourer, I guess, and the vampires eventually conclude that somehow the Lycans have developed ultraviolet bullets lethal to the Death Dealers. You heard me. The shiny stuff inside those bullets? It’s UV rays. Leaving all physical possibilities of containing UV inside bullet heads, it’s a clever way to fight vampires by night on the Lycans’ part. When another yet unnamed vampire who seems to wield some kind of authority among the coven appears, together with the armourer he gives proof to the vampires’ conceit and selfish pride, dismissing the possibility that the aforementioned weapon could have been developed by the Lycans themselves, concluding that it must have been stolen from the military. Um… From Selene’s opening monologue we know that the Lycans developed the ability to shapeshift at will and without losing their consciousness. When they’re not in their werewolf forms, they’re normal humans. And suddenly the vampires believe that all these humans are retards with an IQ of a wooden chair? Somehow, I think that being at war with the vampires for so many centuries and surviving, the Lycans were able to pick up something on the way. So why not specialist weapons? Did the Death Dealers think they’d shoot Lycans with silver bullets and they would jump at them with axes?

In the following scene we learn something about the vampires in turn. Unlike the traditional vampires, the Death Dealers appear to have normal reflections in mirrors. But that’s just a note, I’m not here to talk about vampires. We also learn that the previous vampire’s name is Kraven and that he’s the one left in charge of the Death Dealers in the absence of the real leader. Selene then uploads the photographs her now-dead partner took before the shoot-out and notices that the two Lycans were following a human. She tries to signal that to Kraven, but he remains sceptical.

As the coven prepares itself for the arrival of some kind of envoy guests, we cut to the Lycan side of the story. We see one of the Lycans pick up the body of his fallen fellow and bring it to the Lycan hideout, the silver shurikens still stuck in his chest, seemingly not causing him any harm. We then arrive at what looks like a laboratory that even Jigsaw wouldn’t be ashamed of, with a test subject already hanging from the sealing chained by his hands, as the doctor studies some of his gathered blood samples. The leader of the Lycans who we’ve seen earlier enters and asks the doctor for progress on whatever he’s doing. The doctor takes a sample of the chained human’s blood and mixes it with a vial containing some other concoction – after the mixture turns black, he informs the leader of a failure and crosses out another name from a big list handing on the wall nearby, all the names being a variation of the surname Corvinus. Conveniently, just after the name of the last testsubject is crossed out, we get to see the locker with the name of our human protagonist, which reads “M. Crovin”. Aha, says the viewer, it would now make sense why the Lycans were following him, wanting to bring him back to the doctor for whatever tests he’s conducting. It turns out he’s a medical doctor… and he seems a bit emo.

Meanwhile, at the Lycan lab, the doctor examines the body of the dead werewolf and reaches a conclusion that any regeneration is impossible as the silver bullets have penetrated the victim’s internal organs. As another test vial turns black and the doctor runs out of all names but one, the Lycans become desperate to take a hold of Michael Corvin as soon as possible.

During the party at the Death Dealers’ mansion, celebrating the nearing arrival of an envoy named Amelia to awaken one of the vampire leaders from their slumber, Kraven learns that Selene has managed to identify the human in the photograph as Michael Corvin and subsequently left the mansion in search of him in spite of being forbidden to do so. Selene arrives at his apartment, but finds it empty, while suddenly the police are looking for him as well at the hospital. Michael arrives and finds the door of his apartment unlocked and as he listens to his friend’s phone messege about the police being after him, he gets cornered by Selene. She tries to find out why the Lycans are after him, but is interrupted by the arrival of the Lycans. Taking advantage of the confusion, Michael escapes her grasp and makes his way for the elevator while the Lycans pursue Selene… RUNNING ON WALLS. I am dead serious. Check this out:

I am sorry, but in all seriousness, THIS IS BULLSHIT. I mean, HOW the F*** does a creature of a mass greater than that of a regular human manage to sustain a perpendicular position on a wall by grabbing it with its claws? And doing that, how does a creature like that manage to RUN on that wall?! I mean… Okay, you know what, even f*** the walls, look at the werewolf running on the f****** CEILLING. And I know it’s not visible from a screenshot, but believe me, these fu***** are RUNNING on walls and the ceilling. What the hell is this movie supposed to be, a cross-over between The Matrix and Prince of Persia with werewolves??? Seriously, this is one of the biggest bullshit scenes I have ever seen…

While this happens, Michael is relieved by his escape… until he meets the Lycan leader waiting for him just outside the elevator door when it opens. Selene arrives at the scene and fires a few bullets into the Lycan, but he still manages to bite Michael, thus taking a sample of his blood and additionally infecting him with werewolfism. Not taking any chances, Selene carries the wounded Michael out of the building, while the Lycan tears down his clothes and (apparently with the power of his mind) pushes out the silver bullets out of his body. The werewolves of Twilight would like to look and take their shirts off as badass as this guy, gotta admit. … What’s with all the Twilight comments, I wonder? Now that I think about it, even Kraven, one of the vampires, appears at first in an all-sparkly brocade shirt that made me think something along the lines of sparkly vampires when I saw him. It’s so sad how tainted I’ve become that I think of such things when I now watch Underworld once again. Hope you’re proud, Mrs Meyer, because I’m not.

Anyway. Selene tries to escape with Michael in a car, but the Lycan leader gives chase, showing off his inhuman speed and strength even in human form on the way. He wounds Selene, but they manage to escape him after all. Not too far however, as the vampire soon loses consciousness due to the blood loss. The pacing in that scene made me laugh as one moment she says she’ll be fine and two seconds later loses all consciousness. Michael tries to stop the car, but to no avail and they end up falling into the city river. Michael then gets them both out of the water and dresses Selene’s wound. Surprisingly, he doesn’t notice that she’s got no pulse nor heartbeat being a vampire. Whatever.

In the meantime, the Lycans get to test the sample of Michael’s blood and, obviously, face a positive outcome. Obviously, I mean, he was the last name on the list, wasn’t he? =P Back at the Death Dealers’ mansion, where Selene has taken Michael, the man is haunted by strange, unknown visions of a dying woman and Lycans. He wakes up, but is apparently too tired to stay awake so reverts into slumber while Selene and Kraven have an argument over her bringing him into the mansion. Kraven is furious and once again dismisses Selene’s theory that Michael is somehow relevant to the Lycans. While this happens, one of the female vampires, who seems to have taken to Michael, finds the bite mark on his left shoulder. Michael jumps out of the window and escapes, still seeing flashes of the earlier visions as he hits the ground.

Kraven and Selene burst into the room, but find Michael long gone. They don’t even question the reasons why he escaped in such a hurry nor do they ask why the other female vampire seems so distressed by it. Instead, we get to see Kraven slap Selene in the face for no apparent reason. Dude has serious issues somewhere inside, I swear.

Next, we cut to Selene practising shooting dummies at the vampire headquarters. Kahn, the vampire armourer, brings her a new type of round for her pistols – one with liquid silver inside, which is supposed to ensure the Lycans’ death by the silver going straight into the bloodstream, without a possibility of extraction like before. Sounds painful. While they’re at it, Selene voices her doubts about the death of the Lycan leader, Lucian, who was supposed to have died in a legendary battle slain by the hands of Kraven. Hearing this, we can already be pretty sure that the current leader of the Lycans is in fact Lucian, who’s not only not dead, but alive and well.

The plot thickens as we witness a meeting between Kraven and the Lycan leader, where we learn that Kraven is a traitor to the Death Dealers and that Lucian is indeed alive. Kraven asks Lucian to lay low, but it’s clear that the Lycan has the vampire in his grasp because of the ‘arrangement’ the two of them made with each other. Lucian then assures Kraven that the human is of no concern to the vampires and reminds him that without Lucian he’d not be in the position he is now.

During that time, Selene goes into the vampires’ library and reads up on the legendary battle and the fall of Lucian. Even though she finds a patch of his branded skin in the book, said to be proof of his demise, she learns that Kraven was the only vampire who survived entering Lucian’s fortress, the same vampire credited with the deed of having slain Lucian. The brand on the patch of skin matches the illustration of Lucian (whose upper part depicting the face is very conveniently torn out), however Selene noticed something else – the medallion she saw when fighting the Lycan to catch Michael is the same one as in Lucian’s picture in the book. Heading for the tombs of the elders, Selene runs into her female vampire friend who informs her that Michael was bitten by one of the werewolves.

After escaping from the vampire mansion Michael seeks help at the hospital where he’s been working and tries to explain everything that happened to his workmate. When Michael notices his workmate wants to hand him over to the two police officers that asked about him earlier (and who are in fact just disguised Lycans), he escapes through the window AGAIN.

Subsequently we cut to Selene who has decided that she must break the rules of the vampire coven and awaken her mentor, Viktor, in spite of the nearing ceremony of awakening of a different elder. Unauthorised, she successfully revives Victor and conveys to him, via her blood, all the thoughts that have been bothering her, telling him that she fears Lucian is alive and Kraven is a traitor. After she is done, Michael arrives at the vampire mansion, seeking answers to his current condition. Kraven is once again outraged at seeing him and is taken aback when Selene tells him she revived Viktor. Selene then offers Michael a ride away from the Death Dealers’ headquarters. Kraven discovers Michael is no longer a human, but a Lycan, but his outbreak of anger is interrupted by the newly-awakened Viktor. The elder is disturbed by the images shown to him by Selene and finds an unpleasant surprise in the fact he’s been awakened ‘a whole century ahead of schedule’. Back in the car, Selene explains to Michael that he’s becoming a Lycan and that he’s now part of a war between vampires and werewolves. Asked why she won’t kill him right away since he’s one of the Lycans now, Selene answers she wants to know why he is so important to the werewolves.

A bit later on, when they arrive at a place where Selene wants to hide Michael from the Lycans, she tells him that the visions he’s been seeing are not hallucinations, but memories that Lucian passed to him when he bit him. Now, I don’t think I’ve come across werewolves passing their memories through bites ever before, which leads me to the conclusion that this little plot point was developed wholly in order to explain a part of the movie plot to the viewers beforehand. Which is basically what it does, since later on we find out what they’re all really about.

During a conversation with Michael, Selene reveals her true reasons for fighting the war against Lycans – she believes that when she was younger and still a human, her family was slaughtered by werewolves in their own household, Selene being the only survivor, saved by the arrival of Viktor, the oldest and strongest of the Death Dealers, who was also the one that shortly after made her into a vampire. We also hear Michael’s backstory, but hey, who are we kidding, we’re more interested in the vampires and werewolves than him. So anyway, Selene leaves Michael behind telling him he will transform into a werewolf the next day (a full-moon of course) and giving him a gun with silver bullets. She tells him he should fire a bullet into his own flesh in order to slow down the change should she not come back in time from seeking advice from Viktor.

While Selene returns to the Death Dealer mansion, the Lycans are on the move. Having assembled firearms against vampires, they set out forth to assassinate the covenant that is due to arrive for the (redundant now) ceremony of awakening. In the meantime, Selene goes to talk with Viktor who tells her she will have to be judged for breaking the rules of the coven and expresses his doubts about her theory of Lucian being still alive. He leaves the task of bringing the proof of Lucian’s being dead to – guess what – Kraven, the vampire we already know to be a traitor, for the sole reason of Selene having broken the chain of succession. That seems a bit illogical to me since if Viktor loves and trusts Selene like his own daughter, which he says, and has been hinted at that Kraven might be in league with the Lycans, why give him a chance to cover up proof that someone else has noticed?

The next night (I assume it’s the next night since one can’t really keep track of time judging by sunsets and sunrises but only by what the characters say) Kraven changes the escort team that’s supposed to pick up Amelia and the coven from the train station to a team of his own accomplices, much to the surprise of Kahn who was to be the other team’s leader. At the station, Kraven and his team watch idly as the gargoyle-werewolves murder the members of the coven one by one, all according to Kraven’s arrangement with Lucian.

At the mansion, Selene gets grounded by Kraven, guards at the door of her room, but she soon escapes after her female vampire friend (who’s infatuated with Kraven for some odd reason) triggers the mansion’s alarms. Selene heads then for where she left Michael, but a team of Lycans lead by the doctor is hot on her trail in order to find Michael for themselves. When they meet in the building where Michael is being held, a shootout follows and Michael seemingly escapes through the window (AGAIN) only to be intercepted by the two Lycans disguised as policemen. They drive him round the city to an unknown location and inject him with some kind of sedative when he begins to change. I’ve no idea what that injection was, but even if it were a normal sedative, shouldn’t that have no effect on the progress of the transformation since it’s not a conscious process yet? Because from what the movie tells us, the first transformation is independent of will, however what the movie doesn’t tell us is how then does a Lycan gain control of his ability to change like the rest of the werewolves.

Having dealt with the Lycans that ambushed her, Selene brings back the sole survivor – the doctor – to the vampire headquarters to corroborate her suspicions and we finally get to see Bill Nighy in a state better than a living corpse which he was before, regenerating from slumber.

So Doctor Exposition subsequently spills the beans about the whole plot of the movie. He says that the Lycans were searching for a direct descendant of a fifth-century warlord (of an unmentioned nationality) Alexander Corvinus who, when his village was struck by a plague, could mould the disease according to his own will, therefore becoming the first true immortal. His story is continued by Viktor himself who calls it a ‘ridiculous legend’. According to the legend, Alexander Corvinus had sons who would inherit the same trait – one of whom was bitten by wolf, one by bat, and the last who remained a mortal human. Therefore, it is established that the vampires and werewolves of this universe all originated from one common ancestor. So for many years, it is revealed, the Lycans have been attempting to merge the two species into one, but all their previous attempts failed until they discovered that an untainted version of the trait was being passed down by the descendants of the human son of Corvinus, which eventually lead them to Michael Corvin. The doctors then describes what power lies dormant in the union of the two bloodlines, but Viktor calls it heresy and is appalled at the sole idea. When Kraven conveniently vanishes from the room, the doctor also informs Viktor that Lucian is still alive. He also reveals that the reason for the envoy elder’s, Amelia’s, assassination was for Lucian to obtain a sample of blood from a pureborn in order to mix it with the blood of Michael and his own, thus creating the ultimate vampire-werewolf hybrid. Sheesh, talk about mad scientists. Shortly after, Kahn arrives at Viktor’s chamber to inform him of Amelia’s assassination. Enraged, Viktor kills off the werewolf doctor and tells Selene that she must kill Michael. Upon hearing this, Selene is visibly distraught, since she’s apparently in love with Michael even though they’d barely met and didn’t even spend much time with each other. Whatever…

Meanwhile, at the Lycan lab, Lucian tells Michael he was injected with an enzyme which temporarily halted the transformation. Powerful pseudo-scientific explanations for the win! Michael then has another vision of Lucian’s past and this time is able to see it whole and put together the pieces of the story. In his talk with Lucian, it is revealed that the Lycans used to be slaves to vampires, guarding them during the day. Lucian himself was born as a slave and fell in love with a vampire, coincidentally, Viktor’s daughter. Viktor, afraid of the blending of the two species, punished the two by burning his own daughter alive. After that, according to Lucian, he’s been on a crusade to exterminate the whole Lycan race, which constitutes the on-going war.

Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Kraven, furious with the way his treachery has come to light, trying to put the blame on the Lycans. At the same time, Selene and Viktor along with their squad of vampires arrive at the Lycan headquarters with the aim of destroying Lucian, Michael and eventually, Kraven. Faced with the facts, Kraven shows his true colours and shoots Lucian in the back using one of the new liquid silver bullets. I don’t really know what purpose this is to serve since Lucian is his ally in this conflict. The only thing that comes to my mind is it’s his final desperate attempt at protecting his own skin by, this time definitely, disposing of the Lycan leader (because he’s a CRAVEN – get it? Ohoho…). Some more shooting follows as Lucian’s first-in-command, Raze, finds him unconscious and subsequently goes on a rampage trying to avenge him.

But as we soon find out, Lucian is not so easy to get rid of. After a few more scenes of werewolves running on walls and Selene performing dodges straight from The Matrix we finally see Viktor enter the premises with his escort. Without effort, he dispatches Lycans standing in his way as he searches for Michael. I’m sorry but seeing Bill Nighy here I just can’t help singing…

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes - Lycans all around me and so the hatred grows...

Yes. But coming back to the subject, Viktor at least hasn’t succumbed to the general trend of vampires shooting machine guns at their enemies and finishes off the werewolf before him with his (mediaeval?) sword. Meanwhile, while apparently searching for an exit out of this whole mess, Selene and Michael come across Kraven who shoots Michael at the sight of the two being together. While Michael’s lying there on the floor in agony, Kraven serves at least one purpose in the whole movie by revealing to Selene that it was in fact Viktor who killed her family because of his lust for human blood. He also tells her that the only reason he spared her life was because she reminded him too much of his daughter, Sonja. When Selene refuses to come with Kraven he snaps and tries to shoot her too, but out of the blue Lucian appears and stops him. He orders Selene to bite Michael to save him since he, being a host to Corvinus’s special trait, is the only one who can survive being bitten by both of the species. She does so and shortly after Viktor arrives and tosses Michael away from her. Kraven escapes after finishing off Lucian and Selene has a talk with Viktor, confronting him on what he did to her family. During that time, Michael undergoes a transformation into a vampire-werewolf hybrid and faces Viktor shortly after.

Pretty lazy design for a hybrid that’s supposed to be stronger than both species in my opinion, but oh well. For the great elder he’s supposed to be, Viktor doesn’t show anything special in his fight with Michael (to whom his transformation seems to have given the ability of teleportation). Despite that, Viktor still comes out victorious and is only saved by Selene who picks up Viktor’s sword and kills him in a way that reminds me of the Kill Bill movies. Without any further dialogue, Selene picks up Lucian’s discarded pendant and our main characters walk away from the scene in slow-motion. The movie ends with another monologue by Selene who will now be persecuted for slaying an elder vampire as we see that the blood of the Lycan doctor whose corpse nobody yet was bothered to take care of drips slowly into another elder’s, Marcus’s, tomb, reviving him.

Impressions & Evaluation

My general impression of this movie when I first saw it as well as now is that someone really wanted to make money off of the popularity of The Matrix franchise. Underworld, from the visual and acoustic side, is basically The Matrix with werewolves and vampires. Our main character Selene runs around in a black silicon outfit on platform shoes, a vampire impersonation of Trinity. Same thing goes for other vampires who wear long coats, leather and black sunglasses that remind us of none other than Neo. Adding numerous gunfights, werewolves running on walls and ceilings, and slow-motion stunts that our characters perform, there’s no way that one can say with a straight face that the movie doesn’t make them think about The Matrix. Even the music, scarce but still, is the same industrial type as in the mentioned production. The characters, to me, are mediocre. Michael is a helpless guy who’s tossed between the two races like a ragdoll, thus lacking a spine. Kraven is so bad that I don’t even know where to start with his one default pissed off face that gives me the impression he’d cry in a corner off camera if he could whenever something goes bad for him. Selene is tolerable, but she seems too angsty. Perhaps the point of that was to make her look tough, but after a while it got a little boring. Thus the only characters who I was happy to see whenever they appeared on screen was Lucian and Viktor. As the leaders of the two species, they more or less perform their roles adequately, although I’d expect Viktor to show a little more power in the fight with Michael seeing as he could break the neck of a transformed Lycan with one hand. Lucian, on the other hand, is a leader who doesn’t have to display his full powers (a.k.a. change into a werewolf) to show what he’s made of. In his schemes, he turns out to be the one using other characters, like Kraven, for his own personal agenda. Hell, the sole fact he can push out silver bullets out of his body using nothing but his will makes him badass.

When it comes to the werewolves themselves, Underworld offers us a new type of lycanthropes which I’ve already dubbed as gargoyle-werewolves. Taking a look at the screenshots, I think you know what I mean. Apart from that, the werewolves here are a basic type of bipedal human-wolf hybrids, just a bit balder than to what we’re used to. They’re taller than an average human, muscular, can shapeshift at will, retain consciousness while shapeshifted, and are immortal in the sense that they don’t die of old age. They’re stereotypically allergic to silver which is the basic way the vampires use to dispose of them, but as we find out they can also be killed by extensive bodily damage (like being blown to pieces or having half of their faces torn off). And they can run on walls… Yeah. As for the effects, it’s a pleasant surprise that most of the time we see them, the Lycans rely on a physical model backed up by CGI effects, which makes them more believable. The only thing I found funny was that some stock roars of big cats were used as the sounds the werewolves made. My advice is, if you’re creating a werewolf, at least equip it with all-wolf sounds to avoid possible hilarity. In this place I have to consent that the story is more complex than in your average werewolf movie, which is a plus. We have a background, more or less clear, to back up the characters’ actions and at times we even become curious how it’ll all end up. The universe in which the Death Dealers and the Lycans live is a grim, rainy, Matrix-colour-themed gothic world of the night, which would be very attractive if I didn’t have this thought about the White Wolf, Inc. lawsuit concerning their games at the back of my head screaming that it’s a bland rip-off of Vampire: The Masquerade. The ending of the movie is an open one, clearly leading to a sequel which eventually indeed came to pass.

Overall, Underworld isn’t a bad movie, but I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece either. Maybe it’s because of the lawsuit or because it’s trying to relive the success of The Matrix, just adding vampires and werewolves to its universe. I’d love this movie if the gothic take at the vampire-werewolf conflict didn’t remind me of The Matrix every time I laid my eyes on the screen. There are also some moments in the movie that made me laugh and not because the creators intended for me to do so and characters like Kraven made me twitch at their very sight. So, all in all, if you like gunfights, women in tight leather/silicon outfits, rainy streets, and regretted there not being any vampires or werewolves in The Matrix, then this is a movie for you. Otherwise, watch it out of curiosity or don’t bother at all, just don’t blame me for the loss of a whole 2 hours of your life you could have spent on doing something more productive.

6.5/10

And that's all for today, folks. One down, a whole three more to go, so hope you enjoyed the read, because next month we'll be coming back to the same universe, this time to take a look at what happens in the sequel of the above movie – Underworld: Evolution.

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