Underworld
Directed by Len Wiseman
Review by Rada Djurica
It is extremely hard to make an original horror or SF film today. But even knowing that SF and horror film demands a high budget to be be commercial, people are still making dreadfully boring new SF and horror films. But how to avoid clichés?
In this case, the cliché is central to the plot: a battle between werewolves and vampires, interwoven with a story of humans and the ability to love.
But vampire movies aren't what they used to be. In Bram Stoker's Dracula (directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992), we see the classic vampire story, taken from the classic book, a Balkan ethnic vampire folk story.
Underworld contains no such vampire; it is a new cliché, the kind of film extremely popular among PC-video game playing teenagers. These are the days when a cape, fangs, a cocked eyebrow and a menacing glare are enough. Enough for what I wonder? Well, by today's standards, for great commercial box office.
Underworld, Len Wiseman's directing debut, is a model of a vampire movie for the new century — stylish, gothic and loud. Yet another boring stereotype.
The plot may just as well be irrelevant, as we've seen it so many times before. In fact, this movie requires too much exposition to clarify the plot, while the character development is poor. You see one character from Underworld, and you've seen them all.
Vampires and werewolves have been at war with each other for about 100 years. And it makes you wonder what the f--- they were doing for bloody 100 years; they should have "died" from boredom. You would think that even with a pathetically slow death rate, they would have killed each other by now.
If Underworld were shorter, it would definitely be more fun. Maybe if it had been made as a television film, sandwiched between educational high school science and cultural television programs, it would be more memorable; or perhaps, if made as a video game for gothic horror teenage freaks.
As it is, there are dead stretches in the middle, with spinning plot wheels. The plot heats up, something interesting happens, only to end in disappointment, as the final scene cheats you.
Fans of Blade and other gloomy, bloodthirsty action movies would probably enjoy this, but even they would not be consistently entertained.
I saw a kid watching it, while talking on the mobile phone with his school mate about a hot new sexy next-door neighbor hanging out her new line of knickers, saying something like: "Yes...mate, Underworld is fantastic, just like that video game we had last night."
Well, I guess as far as commercial Hollywood is concerned, the most important thing is to include a sexy actor with a British accent. Judged by commercial standards, this film must have made lots of money, and that was the reason it was made in the first place.
Underworld opens with a chaotic mess of an action sequence that seems to go on forever. Things eventually settle down, and we learn that our hero is a vampire with a British accent, by the name of Selene (Kate Beckinsale), who has devoted her unlife to destroying lycanthropes.
Fearing that antagonist werewolves' actions may put the vampires in jeopardy, Selene does the unthinkable: ignoring protocol, she awakens the ancient vampire aristocrat, Viktor, from his mummified coma.
It seems the director had plenty of empty space in the middle of the film, so he filled it up with a lot of talking, plotting and running through rain-soaked streets. There are also plenty of flashbacks, to fill in the backstory of how the vampire-werewolf war got started. (We can guess that our film director was a good filmmaking business student; well not originally good, but a cliché-hasty, hardworking one.)
And there's a romance, too, predictable, between Selene and Michael, which is forbidden. But, there's no balcony scene; apparently Romeo and Juliet are out of fashion.
The entire style of the film, scene by scene, is depressingly dreary, like a bad combination of Blade and The Crow. The soundtrack sucks, to use the most common meaning of that word. Nothing like a mindless assault on the ears to keep the viewer's attention.
Kate Beckinsale might not be such a bad actor, but the film doesn't require much. All she has to do is to look dangerous and sexy in a skintight Catwoman leather suit, wiggle about and say her lines without giggling at the silly screenplay. Everything in Underworld has that primal wildness, which is part of the success of the film. I am sure that any actor who takes himself seriously wouldn't agree to play in it. Well, with the exception of Angelina Jolie, who took a similar artistic dive in Tomb Raider.