Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, Bill Nighy, Kevin Grevioux    Written by: Len Wiseman, Kevin Grevioux   Directed by: Len Wiseman

The Story:

When first I saw the trailer for this movie I remember talking about it to an old friend. We both had the attitude of "A movie where vampires fight werewolves? KICK-ASS!". Even after the movie hit theaters, I talked to a person who had seen it....his opinion of it was "Kick Ass! Dude, the vampire chick was hot!". Now, I was fairly excited to see it. I knew I wouldn't until it hit the DVD rack, but I was looking forward to it. I'm going to probably be swimming in the opposite direction of popular opinion right now, but I didn't like it much when I did see it.

Underworld isn't a bad movie....well, just stroll through the Infernal Archives....its a masterpiece compared to most of the movies there. but that doesn't mean its a great movie either. Its a shame though....think about the premise. A movie where vampires are in an age-old conflict with werewolves...(They call the werewolves Lycans which is what I will do from here on) That's almost a recipe for a good movie right there. Yet, when I watched it, I was really disappointed. Here's why....the vampires don't do anything vampiric or supernatural at all. Heck, neither do the lycans....with the exception of a few transformation scenes.

The vampires have been at war with the lycans for centuries. Hunted to near extinction, the lycans are trying to make a comeback. Enter Selene, a female Vampire "Death Dealer". Trained to hunt and wipe out the lycans. After a shootout in a subway with a few lycans she finds that the lycans she and her partner were trailing were following a mortal named Michael Corvin. But she doesn't know why.  She's ordered to cease trying to find out by Kraven, the leader of her coven. Well, Kraven is the leader only until one of the "elders" wakes up. It seems that the elder vampires take turns ruling the vampire nation, hibernating in intricate secure coffins to pass the time. Selene despises Kraven and finds several clues that he's been lying for centuries to the elders. The Lycan leader, Lucius still lives, even though Kraven claimed he destroyed him centuries ago, and that Michael Corvin holds the secret to creating a hybrid between vampires and Lycans, one that will be more powerful than either of them.

You'd think that a story like that had a lot of potential for thrills and chills, but it doesn't. Sure, there's a lot of action and cool visuals in the movie. That's a plus. But funk dat....if I wanted to see a straight up action flick I can find one without vampires and werewolves...I mean, Lycans....so that's not a big plus. Now lets hit on the minuses. As I said, the vampires don't do much vampiric stuff. for the most part you see them sitting around in a mansion dressed like rejects from an Anne Rice Novel, doing nothing. Not even a mention of the things that can harm vampires...like crosses, garlic or running water. Yeah, every vampire movie changes the rules a bit, but the only thing we're told is that daylight (or UV light) at least harms them. Not that you'd really know because at no time is it EVER DAY TIME IN THIS MOVIE! The lycans don't even do much better. They show Raze, a big bruiser of a brother change twice....but he doesn't do much wolf like stuff.  Both sides use guns and specialized bullets to wipe each other out. Which when you get to the nitty gritty is the problem. The characters spend so much time shooting at each other that you almost forget that they're supposed to be supernatural beings.

It irks me also when people tell me the movie rocked because Kate Beckinsale looked hot in skin tight black leather. Here's a hint and a half for your ass, my droogies....unless you're extremely ugly, almost anyone looks hot in skin tight black leather. People don't by leather jackets and stuff other than to make themselves look hot. Now Kate's a cute chick, I'll give ya that...but she has the same expression throughout the movie which really got on my last nerve to be honest. Throughout the entire flick she walks around wearing this "I'm mad, so it makes me a bad-ass" look. Sorry, babe, it made you look like a 110 pound chick that's having a bad day and that's it. Though in her defense, her character isn't given much else to do but be angry during the whole movie....and the reasons given for this are decent.

It also didn't help that I could pretty much tell what was going to happen in the long run. Its not fair to say that they could have done more about Michael Corvin being the key....I'll give you that. But you just know Kraven is going to betray his people from the get-go. Crap, when have you ever seen a character named Kraven that turned out to be a good guy? As soon as Selene told her tale of how the vampire Elder Viktor saved her after a lycan slaughtered her family it wasn't a big stretch to realize that Viktor wasn't the hero he was made out to be.

Maybe I'm being to nitpicky. But I guess I was just more than a little let down by this flick. It didn't really add anything new to the mythos of werewolves or vampires. And if you want to see a vampire action flick Blade or Blade II can fit that bill....at least the vampires act like vampires there.

Best Lines:  "Your incompetence is becoming most... *taxing*." -Viktor to Kraven.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Apparently the sun never rises in wherever the hell this movie is taking place. I can understand that vampires and werewolves aren't normally supposed to be active during daylight hours but this movie doesn't even attempt to show us that day time exists. Its hard to mark the passage of time in it.

2.) In order to get to the floor below her while chasing Michael through his apartment building, Selene shoots the floor out under her. Yeah, it looks cool, but there ain't no way she had that many rounds in those pistols.

3.) I read Anne rice's Vampire novels long time ago, and I liked them...but okay, it's 2004...can we please move past the wussy-ass, fancy dressed, Euro trash vampire template now? I mean, vampires are supposed to be scary,, but recently they've become no more than boring Goth wannabes and they don't scare me in the least. If being a vampire means you get to sit around an old mansion and drink blood from wine glasses, then hell, I'm doing okay. I'd rather be a fun lovin' mortal drinking  beer straight from the can. I might not live forever, but eternity in a frilly suit with a bunch of boring dumbasses is my idea of a plane of hell.

4.) Erica is a pretty weak vampire. When Michael escapes the vampire mansion she could have easily stopped him...but she doesn't. why? True she's playing Selene and Kraven against each other, but at this point in the movie she has no reason to allow Michael to escape. What a useless beeeyitch.

5.) Selene is surprised when Khan comes up with bullets filled with silver nitrate to kill the lycans. That's a freakin' surprise? Its one of the first things I'd have imagined if I was fighting werewolves! You mean these vampires have just been firing regular bullets at their lycanthropic enemies all of these years? no wonder it took centuries to end this war! the vampires are stupid dumb asses!

Nudity and Sex: nope

Huh?:

Werewolves can crawl on walls? Since when? Isn't a big freaking wolf man monster scary enough? Now they have to give them spider-powers too? Face it, droogies, a wolf is basically a dog....and I've never seen a dog climb a freakin' tree, let alone walk on a wall.

They don't specify where this movie is taking place, but it must be a city with the smallest f***ing police department known to civilization. A big shootout in the subway? No cops. Gunfire heard from seemingly abandoned buildings? No cops. (Hey, you can say no one heard the gunfire in some of those scenes, but gunfire is loud, droogs, and it travels a long way. I can hear gunfire in my backyard from the firing range on Fort Dix and its about 10 miles away!)

I wonder...Michael rescues Selene from the car that is submerged underwater. But would she have "died"? She's a vampire....so can she actually drown? not a nit, just a thing I wonder about.

The Final Judgment: Underworld has a lot of action to keep you from being too bored...but a lot of the "talky" bits do tend to drag on and the dialogue isn't that interesting. Still, the Inferno can't call it a bad movie. Your individual tastes will vary, but here in the depths of the inferno it can only earn two devil heads. Good enough to not be truly crap, but still crappy nonetheless. If that makes any sense. But little makes sense in the Inferno.