Let’s face it, horror movies aren’t what they used to be. The movies that gave us the biggest frights of our lives and nightmares when we were kids, it’s almost like they don’t make them anymore. Classics like The Exorcist, The Shining, or even Freddy and Jason movies. Does anyone remember Chucky? These old school kind of movies have seemed to have been replaced in recent years by psychological chillers like The Sixth Sense and The Ring, and over the top action horror movies like Blade. Underworld is one of those over the top action movies, but with a horror theme such as the endless fight between vampires and werewolves. It could seem like a horror movie but it’s not. It’s seems like just another Blade that lacks storyline, solid characters, and fills the general needs of cinema with silver bullets.
The storyline is quite simple enough, werewolf hunter supreme Selene, who is played by the beautiful Kate Beckinsale, is the leader of the “Death Dealers”, a posse of mean ass vampires who are determined to hunt werewolves into extinction. The 1,000 year war that rages in the movie sucks in a unknowing human Michael Convin, played by Scott Speedman, who the werewolves believe is the missing link to creating a mix DNA strand combining the likes of Lyken, that would be werewolf, and vampire. Leader of the Lykens, Lucian is determined to get to Michael and that is basically the whole idea of the movie. A game of cat and mouse over a human who both sides believe is either the end or a new beginning for their kind. The plot gets even more confusing when the vampire leader Viktor is awakening and the vampires begin to fight amongst themselves, some siding with the Lyken and some remaining true to Viktor. The sides become split and then all hell breaks lose. By the end, it seems more like a lame Romeo and Juliet because Selene and Michael attraction to each other. The love between two different enemies will remind you very much of the old blood brawl between Capulet and Montague. The love subplot still doesn’t add anything to this movie.
Since this is a action movie and not a horror movie, I suppose there would be some kind of action in it. There are plenty of guns and leather in this movie that will remind you more of The Matrix than a horror movie. The actually gun fights are nothing special either. Shots are slowed down, giving it a Matrix similarity and the probably coolest thing you’re going to see done with a gun is Selene blowing a hole in the floor to beat a elevator. The horror elements of this movie are still there though, and it still brings up the style of Blade over and over again. Vampires turning into ash after being shot with fluorescent light bullets, been there done that. The coolest eye candy you’re going to get out of this movie is the transformation scenes, the technology they have doing those computer graphics nowadays make Michael Jackson’s transformation from Thriller look like a Saturday morning cartoon. These wolves look big and mean, the way they were supposed to be. These wolves did eat Little Miss Riding Hood on her way to Grandma’s house.
In the end, Underworld fails to deliver in all departments. There are weak characters and a even weaker storyline, the only thing you’re going to get out of this one is a endless gun fight, and those happen about every single half hour of the 2 hour drag of the movie. The art and visual in it do add some hope to the picture but not enough, it’s a movie about vampires and werewolves, the only kind of scenery kind you’re going to get is Gothic, meaning every single scene is either a abandoned church, a abandoned dark street, rain, or night time. I applaud you for that. Your use of leather could get you into any S+M club any day of the week. The vampires look pale white, and the wolves look vicious and ready to bite, but on regards to the dumb war they’re fighting, I really don’t care who wins or who loses I just wanted it to end.