Movie Review: Underworld

Underworld

The premise for Underworld is an intriguing one: for hundreds of years, vampires have been battling with werewolves. In the present day, the conflict is nearing a resolution one way or the other, and both vampires and lycanthropes are pulling out all the stops to come out on top. Unfortunately, though clearly involving the expenditure of real money, the movie fails to come even remotely close to its potential.

In Underworld, Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a vampire who hunts down and kills lycanthropes. By now, it is commonly believed that the lycans, as the movie refers to them, are all but extinct. Though Selene laments the loss of a job that she really enjoys, she never-the-less doesn't hold back in her efforts. On one of her missions, when Selene discovers the lycans are apparently out to catch a human, she also finds what she thinks is evidence that the number of surviving lycans is greater than previously thought. She believes they're getting together in preparation for an attack on the vampire coven as it prepares its once-a-century change of leadership. Selene takes her suspicions to the head of the coven, but he doubts her word. So Selene, against orders, looks for the human herself and tries to figure out why the lycans want him so badly. Once she begins to learn more about the circumstances, however, she finds her own beliefs shattered and her life in grave danger even as she finds herself strangely drawn to the human at the center of the storm.

The sets for Underworld are magnificent, and the majority of the effects are good. Both are thoroughly spoiled, however, by an unrelenting darkness to every scene. Even the brightest of colors in well-lit hospital corridors are grey. And the backgrounds are clear as crystal in comparison to a script that's a clouded hodge-podge of mythology and explanation that seems to be missing huge - and salient - chunks of data. The acting is wooden, the characters largely undeveloped, and the storyline is so weak that it's hard to identify much of a plot at all. And the direction and editing are even worse. I'm a huge vampire fan and, as such, am inclined to forgive a multitude of faults. Unfortunately, Underworld has at least that many.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Underworld is rated R for its graphic violence. It's an adult film on virtually every level and, as such, I can't recommend it for anyone under the age of 17.