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.

Rhona Mitra and Michael Sheen in Screen Gems' Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

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 eight years of 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. 

Film Rating: êê (out of 4)  

Additional Links