MOVIE REVIEW

Underworld  (2003)

Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman
Director: Len Wiseman

Rating: R

Studio: Screen Gems

Release Date: 9.19.03

Review Posted: 9.19.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

Vampires and Werewolves Go to War

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 here 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 story (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.

Opening with a brief explanation of events, we’re quickly introduced to Selene (Kate Beckinsale, “Serendipity,” “Pearl Harbor”), a vampiric hunter known as a “Death Dealer.” She’s stalking a particularly burly set of Lycans – werewolves to you and me – through the busy nighttime streets of an unnamed medieval looking city. They seem to be hunting a rather attractive human but before she can be sure Selene and her companions find themselves in the midst of a brutal subway shootout, human pedestrians fleeing like scared zoo animals.

As it turns out the human in question, Michael (Scott Speedman, “Dark Blue”), is being sought by the Lycans. Their leader, Lucian (Michael Sheen, “The Four Feathers”), believes the man’s ancestral link to a person integral to both the Vampire and Lycan bloodlines might be just the breakthrough he needs to take the upper hand in the centuries-long war. But, before he can bring Michael into their underground domain for testing, Selene shows up and saves him.

The female warrior suddenly finds herself at a crossroads. Due to a painful personal tragedy she’s been raised to wish for nothing more than the eradication of the Lycans, but faced with information that points towards one of the Vampire’s own to being a traitor, Selene starts to think her clan may be in mortal danger from the inside, as well as from the werewolves. Fearing the worst, the woman resurrects the most powerful and ancient of all her race from his 500-year sleep, their leader and protector Viktor (Bill Nighy, “I Capture the Castle”).

But Selene’s problems are worse than she realizes. During their escape from Lucian, Michael was bitten and is now cursed to become a hated Lycan. Worse yet, all that the warrior has been taught to believe and hold sacred throughout her many centuries might actually be false, meaning her very existence and goals in afterlife may have all been done for the wrong reasons. Forced to flee her clan’s chateau, Selene finds herself on her own trying to save Michael and discover whom the traitor in her house really is, all before the Lycan’s final brutal onslaught against her brethren can be unleashed.

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 film. This is nothing more than glorified and grungy B-movie extravaganza, and as guilty pleasures are concerned, there really is nothing wrong at all with a well made one of those. 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. And somehow that way of thinking works, thrusting us right into the middle of this war almost as if we’d have set foot in a barrio gang battle or 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 here and there I am sure were unintentional, and the McBride’s script more than hits its share of potholes along the way to its sequel-begging conclusion. It doesn’t help that the Vampire mole twisting events to his own ends is particularly underwritten (and even worse played by actor Shane Brolly, “Imposter”) or that the true reasons for the war between these two mythic creatures isn’t much of a surprise.

But Wiseman manages to make it all work his first time behind the camera. 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 and turns far more successfully than I’d ever have imagined. He also shows a dynamic flare for action scenes. Sure, the look and design of “Underworld” owes its vary existence to films like “The Matrix,” “Blade,” “Dark City” and “Blade Runner,” but Wiseman makes it all feel much fresher and alive than it ever 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 most of the time. Pitting these two creatures together, I was hoping for some earth-shaking battles that could rock gothic city it was all taking place in to its vary core. Instead, for the most part all I got were a bunch of admittedly nicely staged shootouts that seemed to be between a snotty collection of gentrified black latex-clad sadomasochists and a bunch of hairy Seattle grunge band rejects.

The actors eat it all up, however, especially the talented and multi-faceted 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 is 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 looses her femininity, maintaining a womanly glow even while efficiently dispatching a gaggle of werewolf warriors.

Speedman has less to play than Beckinsale does, yet still manages to make the most of it, erasing memories of his milk toast performance in “Dark Blue.” Looking like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Nightcrawler from the “X-Men,” the actor manages some moments near the end that are brutally unsettling, yet tinged with a motif of fading humanity that’s surprisingly potent. Even better, though, is veteran British character actor Nighy. In a role completely unlike anything he’s done before, Nighy 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 truly the kick-ass king of the 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 to the picture. Wiseman never lets 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 a needed passionate drive, Bruton Jones’ (“Armageddon”) production design is so derivative of other contemporary gothic motion pictures that a been-there/done-that feel 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 just going to get.

Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4)

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