Underworld

I've never really been into Vampires.

And believe me, I've tried. I have tried to look past Twilight, I've tried to find the good vampire movies, the fiction, the mediums with vampires that have been proclaimed good. I watched about 4 seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I've watched Joss Whedon vampires for god's sake and I'm still kind of lukewarm on the whole subject.

Now there's a whole other post I can do on Buffy and Joss Whedon, but the point is, I'm not a huge fan of vampires. I am however, a fan of action franchises that refuse to die. Not because they're particularly good, but because they're entertaining to watch. How they begin, how and how they end up. An example of this is the Die Hard franchise, or the Matrix. Another example, is Underworld.

Underworld takes place in your typical dank and dark vampire world where a war has been taking place between the Vampires and the Lycans.

Now, right off the bat, why they call them Lycans instead of werewolves, is really kind of beyond me. I guess werewolves was to... simple?

Anyway, this war has been going on for centuries and the Vampires seem to be victorious. Our main character Selene (played by Kate Beckinsale) is a Death Dealer Vampire. They're the ones that have been hunting down the Lycans. They also seem to losing their jobs soon as the Lycans are pretty rare. She's apart of a Coven of Vampires led by a vampire named Kraven (played by Shane Brolly). Kraven's a horribly acted character but he's quite important as he wants to name Selene his Queen and rule the Vampire coven while there's a big ceremony of sorts to awaken some old Vampires or something, its a little confusing the rituals of the vampires but the point is, she doesn't want to be his Queen.

In a battle with the Lycans, Selene runs across a human by the name of Michael Corvin (played by Scott Speedman). Michaels also a pretty horribly acted character, but he's very important as the Lycans want to capture Corvin for unknown reasons.

Selene begins a journey, against the wishes of Kraven and the Coven, to find Michael, protect him from the Lycans, and figure out why the Lycans want him. All the while, she apparently begins falling in love with him... I guess. That's something that was always in the descriptions of this movie and how it was such a torn romance she was feeling, but in all honesty, I didn't see any chemistry or even an indication that these two were interested in each other outside of one kiss they share which is really one of the laziest onscreen kisses I've seen in a long time.

Anyways, she's eventually given a choice, everything she's ever known in her Coven, or this guy that she's barely met but seems to have something about him that is special.

Now, the fun part about this movie is that the supporting characters and the people who represent these two warring factions, are actually pretty good actors. Bill Nighy plays Viktor, the elder vampire who is awakened by Selene when they need guidance of how to face this Lycan threat.

Probably the coolest character of the movie is in fact the antagonist of the film, Lucien (played by Michael Sheen).

I mainly know Sheen from Frost/Nixon and some other stuff. He's this classically trained actor and I've actually really come to like his work (Outside of Twilight). I obviously haven't seen enough to really say that he's a great actor but I really enjoyed him in this film. And that was unexpected as when I first saw him on screen I was like, "OH... hey Michael Sheen!"

But while the rest of the movie is just kind of treating itself like a mindless action movie with mindless action figures doing what they need to do to keep moving and entertain, Sheen actually tries to convey something and I actually found his character really interesting.

Nighy is also a really entertaining part of the movie. While I don't think he's the best villain in the world, he does convey a sort of Palpatine-esc persona and is entertaining. You could kind of tell from the get go that this guy was going to end up a villain (spoiler?) but that's kind of the entertaining part of it.

Which kind of makes this movie ride a difficult line. Its a time before Vampires were sparkly and more likable. So in a way you know that the Vampires can all be good guys.

And that kind of leads me into the style of this movie.

For some reason, nobody can really get away from the idea that Vampires always have to dress like goth fancy emo people. The look of all these vampires is so cliche and so dated that it doesn't exactly hold up over a decade later. And the weird thing is, Vampires still look like this!

I mean yeah, Edward wears a V-Neck, but you throw him in Underworld, give him a leather jacket and he fits right in. I'm not totally sure if I mean this in a way that discredits this movie or compliments it for continuing a precedent and doing it successfully, but the style of movie just kind of reminded me of a manlier version of Twilight. The point is you could do a crossover here and nothing would look out of place... in fact can we do a crossover where Bella gets shot by Selene... that'd be cool.

Speaking of shooting, there is another element of this movie that makes it a little bit different and that is the immense amount of leather and gun play...

Again, imagine Twilight but much manlier and with the costumes and action of the Matrix.

And that's kind of why this movie is a little bit entertaining.

Yeah the characters are dull, yeah there's no much of a story, but there's so much Matrix-like action and lots of fantasy gun play that it actually becomes a little bit entertaining. I'm still kind of amazed that with the critical response to these movies that there were two sequels, a prequel and two sequels still on the way, but that's what action franchises do sometimes.

Now you may be asking yourself why I haven't talked too much about Kate Beckinsale in this movie as it really is her movie. And the truth is, besides the fact that she looks great in leather, Kate Beckinsale is really kind of boring in this film.

She does that quiet British voice that makes her sound like a badass, which she is, but she's not really that interesting of a character and really takes a backseat to the action going on around her. She's just kind of the spectator of this war going on between the Lycans and the Vampires. If she wasn't in the movie, it really wouldn't have made much of a difference and that's not really a great quality to have as a protagonist of a film. She's by no means bad and I'm actually looking forward to her in future films, but what I'm saying is that she's not exactly the most elaborate or complicated hero in cinematic history, she's not even that memorable to be honest.

But if you haven't figured out yet, I was entertained by Underworld. Its not really a great movie at all. Its a little bit dull at times and the acting, save a few people who have since gone on to do good things (Sheen, Nighy and even Beckinsale), is actually quite bad. The saving grace of the movie really is the action. I think the tone is a little bit dated and doesn't hold up today, but the action, inspired by the Matrix and other action films of the time really does make the movie at least a little bit fun.

Last thing I'll say is that I really feel like this movie is trying to be more than a mindless action franchise (which it is) and the movie did feel a little bit long. A lot happens in this film and then you look at your watch and realize that it hasn't even been an hour of this two hour long movie. I think a little of the film could have been cut down.

The movie itself is not horrible but you can kind of tell that its the kind of movie that wants to have a sequel and you can kind of tell already that the sequels are going to be garbage. But at the same time, it is entertaining and I am interested in watching the next sequel on Netflix.

I never spent money to go and see this movie and I don't plan to for future movies.

Hopefully, this franchise continues to be entertaining enough to get a good yuck or two out of it and hopefully its not a waste of time continuing on in this franchise.

But those are my thoughts on Underworld. What do you think? You can comment and discuss below, let me know what you think.

You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24. Send me your thoughts on this movie and any other movies that I have reviewed. You can also send me requests for future movies to review and I will make them my priority. Follow me on Twitter to get updates on movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Its a short one, but its the How it Should Have Ended. And I thought the EXACT same thing when that scene was going on. Its really funny how on the note they can be. Enjoy!