Underworld

The war between the Vampires and the Lycans begins, Death Dealer Seline (Kate Beckinsale) discovering that werewolf leader Lucian (Michael Sheen) is obsessed with human Michael (Scott Speedman), much to the consternation of just-out-of-hybernation vampire lord Viktor (Bill Nighy). (6/10)

Underworld: Evolution

Seline (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman) are under assault from Marcus (Tony Curran), the hybrid vampire lord intent on freeing his werewolf brother from his prison and waging a war upon mankind that could ravage the face of the planet in ways to horrific to comprehend. (6/10)

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

The story of Lucian (Michael Sheen), vampire lord Viktor (Bill Nighy) and his daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra), their collective fates setting into motion a war between mythical species that will last for centuries to come. (5/10)

CRITIQUE

Here’s what I wrote about Underworld back in 2003:

“A war has been going on amongst us for hundreds of years. No, not that stuff going on in the Middle East (although that has, unfortunately, been going on for a very, very long time), I’m talking about that ultra-secretive war between the Vampire clans and the Lycanthrope horde. What, you didn’t know these two age-old groups were locked in a mortal feud? That’s because they’ve somehow managed to hide it from us all these past centuries, engaging in combat amidst the shadows of our city’s sewers, slums and back alleys.

At least, that’s the ingenious set-up as presented in the new action/horror epic Underworld. A glossy, rain-drenched thriller set in an undisclosed gothic city, the story is so insanely pulpy and preposterous you’d swear it was based on a comic book. And while it isn’t, it’s pretty much a given that Len Wiseman, Danny McBride and Kevin Grevioux’s idea (with a script written by McBride) will probably be one soon, pleasing pock-faced fan-boys all over the world. If that sounds harsh, it isn’t meant to, for Underworld is a kicky good time…

…As silly, over-the-top movies are concerned, Underworld could almost rank right up there with the best of them. High art is not a concept that quickly comes to mind when thinking about co-writer/director Wiseman’s debut. This is nothing more than glorified and grungy B-movie extravaganza, and as guilty pleasures are concerned, there really isn’t anything wrong with that. Besides, who wouldn’t want to see Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet played amongst the world of vampires and werewolves?

For the most part this is a well-made movie. The script somehow against all odds makes sense in its own gothic horror movie world. Things are explained quickly and perfunctorily, as if that is the way things are and it is the way things always have been so we might as well just used to it and enjoy the ride. Somehow that way of thinking works, thrusting viewers right into the middle of this war as if they’d set foot in a barrio gang battle or on the front lines of a brutish Third World conflict.

Sure Underworld has its share of silliness and none-too-bright thinking. There are moments of humor I am sure were unintentional, and McBride’s script more than hits its share of potholes along the way to its sequel-begging conclusion, and doesn’t help that the Vampire mole twisting events to his own desires is underwritten or that the true reasons for the war between these two mythic creatures isn’t a surprise.

But Wiseman manages to make it all work. The spiraling nature of the plot doesn’t snag as often as you’d think, the director managing to subtly camouflage many of the twists far more successfully than I’d have imagined. He also shows a dynamic flare for action scenes. Sure, the look and design of Underworld owes its very existence to films like The Matrix, Blade, Dark City and Blade Runner, but Wiseman makes it feel much fresher and alive than it really should.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted more from Underworld than what I got. The concept is so imaginative – it’s fun to just think about it – and full of potential that it’s a shame the movie tends to take the easy way out. Pitting these two creatures together, I was hoping for some earth-shaking battles that could rock the battlefield to its very core. Instead, for the most part all I got were a bunch of nicely staged shootouts between a snotty collection of gentrified black latex-clad sadomasochists and a bunch of hairy Seattle grunge band rejects.

The actors eat it up, especially the talented Beckinsale. So good in comedically serious roles in films like Cold Comfort Farm, watching her flip her hair with a snarl while pounding a fresh clip into a handgun a scandalously gleeful joy. Sleek and sexy in her parade of corsets and leather (makes me almost wish I had the body – and the guts – to risk clothes that divinely decadent), Beckinsale seems to revel in the primal ferocity of her Vampire character. Yet, much like Sigourney Weaver in the Alien films, the actress never loses her femininity, maintaining a womanly glow even while efficiently dispatching a gaggle of werewolf warriors.

Speedman has less to play yet still manages to make the most of it, erasing memories of his milquetoast performance in Dark Blue. Looking like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Nightcrawler, the actor manages some moments near the end that are brutally unsettling yet tinged with a motif of fading humanity that’s surprisingly potent.

Best of all, though, is veteran British character actor Nighy. In a role completely unlike anything he’s done before, he commands the screen as the vampire leader Viktor. Never for a second – whether freshly up from the grave and hanging by a thread to life or coolly walking the city’s subways with a nonchalant joi de vive that’s eerily menacing – did I not believe that this was the kick-ass king of vampires, the actor galvanizing the attention like a car aflame on the side of the road.

I just kept wishing the little things in Underworld would work better. There is no sense of time, Wiseman never letting daylight into the film so even though days are supposedly passing the movie can’t help but feel like a scene out of one particularly long evening. And while Tony Pierce-Roberts (Howards End) shoots the films quite elegantly and with needed passion, Bruton Jones’ (Armageddon) production design is so derivative of other contemporary gothic motion pictures that a been-there/done-that vibe can’t help but hover over everything.

All in all I still like Underworld. While not remotely anything close to perfect it still manages to get the job done as far as entertaining an audience is concerned. It has more original ideas than unoriginal ones, and the action is fiercely dynamic and expertly staged. If that’s not a rousing recommendation, so be it; in this day and age of paint-by-numbers moviemaking, sometimes a lukewarm thumbs up and a pleasantly contented smile is the best we’re going to get.”

Here’s what I wrote about Underworld: Evolution back in 2006:

“If 2003’s Underworld looked and felt like a movie that should have been based on a comic book, than Underworld: Evolution, opening today, is a movie that looks and feels like something that should have been a video game. Taking place over, what looked like to me, a muddy and frenetic 30-plus-hour period, the flick is shot-out-of-a-cannon-style filmmaking, hurtling from one big event to the next with all the subtlety of a WWF smackdown between 350-pound Neanderthals…

…It’s pretty silly stuff, and director Les Wiseman and Danny McBride’s story shows no more subtlety this time around than it did in the last episode of this series. Hurtling between 1202 A.D. and the modern day, the duo impart their exposition in-between spurts of steroid-enhanced ultra-violence, this movie so beefy and brawny all it is missing is some Conan-like assassin wielding a humongous axe. No, this isn’t a film made for those who like their entertainment coming with a side of intelligence, everything you really need to know about the plot mechanics (save for one great big secret I’m not about to disclose) gleamed from watching the feature’s trailers and television ads.

Still, if this sort of thing is your piece of toast than Underworld: Evolution even includes a side of honey. Wiseman may still not be the best writer, but he is growing as a director. At least of action scenes, this movie is boasting some of the best butt-kicking and bone-crunching B-level monster mash I’ve ever seen. The fights move with a kinetic ferocity missing from the first installment, culminating in a hybrid vs. werewolf, Selene vs. Marcus showdown almost worth the price of a matinee admission all on its own.

Almost. Wiseman is so obsessed with keeping the speed stuck at maximum he forgets to ever slow down enough to let the characters evolve. Michael is literally dealing with his first day as a hybrid, and yet his internal dilemma at never being able to eat solid food or having to spend the rest of his life in the shadows is dealt with so quickly if you blink you’ll probably miss watching him become okay with it. Poor Selene, on the other hand, finds out her entire life is even more of a lie than she could ever have imagined it to be, and one quick gulp of blood from a shadowy benefactor is all she apparently needs to put that behind her and deal with Marcus once and for all.

When the film does finally decide to slow down, it does so for one of the most ludicrously placed sex scenes in recent cinematic memory. Granted, it’s a hell of a sexy sequence, both Speedman and Beckinsale salivating all over one another so thoroughly and with such unbridled passion I could swear I could feel the temperature in the theater rise a few degrees. But the whole thing makes no sense, none at all, and as pretty as the two of them are together when it’s all finally over I couldn’t help but giggle like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl.

No matter, for those wanting to see another vampire-werewolf brawl running thick with blood and gore, this is definitely the January treat for which you were waiting. For me, there are far too many unanswered questions, too many plot strands left undeveloped, far too much emphasis on gun fighting over plot mechanics. It ain’t rocket science, and it sure as heck isn’t going to win any awards for sensitivity or smarts, but Underworld: Evolution delivers on exactly what it promises; nothing more, nothing less. While I’m not exactly sure that’s a character trait worthy of applause, I’m not about to pull my hair out throwing a fit, either.”

Here’s what I wrote about Underworld: Rise of the Lycans back in 2009:

“Viktor (Bill Nighy), the powerful leader of the Vampire clan, once made the decision to raise the second generation of Lycan children as pets and protectors for use as builders and guard dogs depending on his needs. The best of these is Lucian (Michael Sheen), the first of his kind, and while born into slavery he is still given a freedom the rest of his species lacks.

It is this autonomy that spells his doom, a clandestine love affair with Viktor’s iron-willed and fiercely independent daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra) so forbidden it could be death for the both of them if it were ever discovered. But without discovery, the war of the species could not begin, and without that war, freedom for Lucian and his brethren could not ever be possible.

What happens next isn’t a surprise to anyone who has seen either Underworld or Underworld: Evolution, this new chapter in the vampires versus werewolves saga rewinding to a time a thousand years before Selene and Michael shook up the status quo and joined the bloodlines into one. Underworld: Rise of Lycans is, after all, a prequel, and as such the chances of it holding any shocking surprises or new revelations sits someplace precariously between slim and none.

Make that more none than slim, the film about as pointless an elaboration on this silly, slickly produced series as any I could have imagined. More to the point, as someone who enjoyed (probably more than she really cares to admit) both of the previous two adventures this one is so anemically warmed-over and routine watching it becomes something of a chore, and by the time it is over it’s hard not to walk out of the theater scratching your head why it was made to begin with.

Not that this foray back into comic book-style medieval history doesn’t have its attraction. Watching Nighy and Sheen (the usually mannered Frost/Nixon star looking daringly sexy sans shirt and covered in mud) return to roles so far beneath their magnetic talents yet still looking to infuse them with power and passion they don’t deserve is totally a hoot, and for every fanboy and fangirl who always fantasized about seeing Dracula and the Wolfman go toe-to-toe watching a drooling werewolf smite a sword-wielding vampire still has its giddily self-indulgent charms.

It just feels all so familiar this time around. This part of the story has already played itself out during the climaxes of both of the proceeding pictures, every beat of the storyline and turn of the plot as forgone as Barack Obama signing Executive Order after Executive Order to undue the lunacy inflicted during the preceding eight years. It’s much ado about nothing, and while it can sometimes look pretty and while some of the action can rouse the senses that’s not near enough to make enduring it anything close to worthwhile.

What’s funny is that I got the feeling returning screenwriter Danny McBride (working with two newbie’s, Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain) felt more than a little bit the same. Scenes tend to repeat themselves over and over again almost as if caught in one of Dr. Who’s timeloops, and if I had to watch Lucian thrown into a jail cell for an umpteenth time I think I would have started laughing in unmitigated incredulity right there in the theater.

The shortest of the three films by far, somehow these sorts of problems end up making the feature feel as if it is longer than the first two combined. Director Patrick Tatopoulos (the creature effects designer for the entire trilogy) shows the pacing ability of a tortoise, allowing editor Peter Amundson (Hellboy) to cut things so laconically you’d think they were composing an epic about Mayberry and not a slam-bang Transylvanian monster mash of Gothic good and evil.

One gets the sense this is the end of the line for Underworld. Former star Kate Beckinsale hasn’t exactly sounded enthusiastic when asked if she’d ever return to the role of Selene, while I can’t imagine Nighy or Sheen being very quick to re-up for more now that their contractual obligations are complete. Fun for at a little while, Rise of the Lycans is a last hurrah proving this series has seen one sunrise too many and whose cinematic bloodlust has unfortunately run dry.”

Obviously, considering the latest Underworld installment hits theatres this January and star Kate Beckinsale has indeed returned, I’d say my last paragraph for my Rise of the Lycans review was wrong on numerous counts (to say the least). Cinematic bloodlust for this series is I guess higher than I anticipated, making a return trip to the vampire-werewolf battlefield a far more forgone conclusion than I originally anticipated.

As for this original trilogy, these films are still surprisingly watchable, I do have to give them that. Even Rise of the Lycans, especially if watched first before the two Beckinsale-Speedman adventures, ends up being a guilty pleasure hard to completely dismiss, these movies so unabashedly silly and over the top genre fans should get much more of a kick out of them than should probably be admitted.

As for this collection, other than a bonus Blu-ray featuring a short promo piece for the new movie and the complete Underworld: Endless War anime shorts (there are three of them), these are the same discs already available with no new transfers, special features or other miscellaneous extras that could get a fan excited. In short, if you already own the Blu-rays for this series, there is no point to buy this collection, even the ability to use the UltraViolet digital copy function not enough of a plus to make a new purchase worthwhile.

THE VIDEO

Underworld is presented on a dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video with 1080p 2.35:1 transfer. (8/10)

Underworld: Evolution is presented on a single-layer 25GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video with 1080p 2.35:1 transfer. (7/10)

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is presented on a dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video with 1080p 2.40:1 transfer. (9/10)

THE AUDIO

The Underworld Blu-ray features an English LPCM 5.1 audio track along with various other optional audio selections and includes English SDH, French and Italian subtitles. (7/10)

Underworld: Evolution features an English LPCM 5.1 audio track along with Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks and includes English SDH, French, Cantonese, Portuguese and Spanish subtitles. (7/10)

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans features an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track along with various other optional audio selections and includes English SDH, French. Portuguese and Spanish subtitles. (9/10)

THE EXTRAS

Save for the three-part Underworld: Endless War anime short included on a bonus Blu-ray disc, all extras are the same from the previous Blu-ray releases for each title. In other words, I’m not going to go into them all. So there.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Underworld Trilogy: The Essential Collection repackages the quite excellent Blu-rays previously released by Sony ages ago, only adding a bonus disc with the three-part animated short as something of a thinly veiled afterthought. If you do not already own the Underworld films, and you are a fan, by all means pick this collection up. Everyone else, however, would be better served by keeping their cash safely tucked within their respective wallets.