Ok, I know I said in a recent comment that I wasn't going to bother watching this film, but I changed my mind. So sue me.
I actually tried to watch this the other day, but the first 10 minutes led me to believe that I was about to waste the following 110 minutes of my life, which could be better spent say, reorganizing the garage. But, I did have it home from Netflix, and the wife and daughter were out, so I figured what the heck... it might make for a good napping opportunity.
Imagine my suprise when I found this to be the first movie I've seen that breaks my "if the first 10 minutes stink the entire movie will stink" rule. Now understand that I'm talking strictly "popcorn flick" level here, and nothing beyond that, but for what it was, it actually got better as it progressed.
Either that or I just became numb to the whole thing.
The plot is actually fairly interesting (and might have made for a better film if done by a different group of people): Werewolves and vampires have been at war for 600 years and the vampires are winning. Our hero(ine) is Selene (played by fanboy favorite Kate Beckinsdale), a soldier-class vampire who enjoys her work and is actually getting melancholy over the fact that there are so few werewolves left to dispatch.
Underworld opens with a number of shots that told me immediately that this movie was going to be totally and completely style over substance. Don't ask me how, it's a gift. Don't get me wrong: it does look cool, but after a while too much frosting and not enough cake just isn't very appetizing.
High on the "cool factor" is a shot right at the beginning where Selene drops about 150 ft from the top of a building. They show it in two shots, a long one from the top and a shorter one from about 20 ft off the ground down to where she lands decisively in a crouch. From there it's an on-foot chase scene down into a subway where Selene and a couple of partners are following two guys who one can only assume (correctly) to be werewolves. The action is so fast and furious and the characters (with one exception) all look so similar, that it was hard for me to keep track of who was doing what to whom.
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Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
SR, very well-done review, thanks! We saw it a couple of weeks ago on cable and had the same mixed feelings, basically coming out on he positive side. Re the plot, it was actually the most interesting aspect and the twists and turns about who constituted the "bad guys" turned enough times to keep my interest as well as head swimming by that time of night.
Beckinsale was quite good, as was Michael Sheen as the Lycan leader, and Bill Nighy as Beckinsale's mentor. Shane Brolly as Kraven, the temporary head of the vamps was actually quite awful, dragging the movie down in a key role.
The other thing it succeeded in doing was make me think about some of the practical implications of immortality and the imperative of the survival of the species.
2 - Vic
Thanks Eric. Yeah I agree that Shane's performance was pretty bad. Kind of soap opera-ish.
Vic
3 - John Lars Ericson
Nice review, SR!
Kate Beckinsale was surprisingly well-cast for this, although I thought the movie itself was headache-inducing. I guess I just tire of that blue-and-black dreary color scheme.
4 - Eric Olsen
it WAS very moody
5 - visualsimplicity
I enjoyed this film too (mostly because I'm a fanboy of Kate Beckinsale). However, I can see why people wouldn't like it. I had mixed feelings about the movie too (but because of Beckinsale, it tipped towards positive--which I can't really say about Van Helsing, her presence couldn't exactly save that film).
Regardless, I was mostly interested in the history, backstory, and world that was created from this movie if anything else. I guess you could say I enjoyed the film more for it's potential rather than any actual product (which is odd). It's a rich world, much like Blade, Matrix or any other sci-fi-ish thing, and I can only hope in the long run (in one of the sequels) there'd be something spectacular to come from it.
6 - Eric Olsen
good point Vis, I was trying to say the same thing about the world it created, but movie-wise it wasn't all there