Movie Info

Underworld - "An immortal battle for supremacy."

If you're looking for a great movie with lots of actions, vampires, werewolves and some of the best looking evil people around, then go see Underworld. If you're looking for anything else...well, go see Lost in Translation! When I first saw the trailers for Underworld I was flattened. Mainly due to the fact that I had not heard anything about this movie (which stars a HOT Kate Beckinsale), I got this sense of urgency to go watch the film.

The plot is pretty simple. The advertisements kind of say it's a vampire/werewolf take on the Romeo and Juliet but I consider that a side plot. Besides, what isn't a rip of this or that? People are saying this is just the Matrix with all the costumes, etc. I wish they'd stop comparing it to the Matrix and other films. I personally think it's a natural progression in film-making. Evil people HAVE to look good doing evil things. Besides, nobody remembers those wicked costumes from Hellraiser? Eh? Anyways, back to the plot. Lycans (werewolves) and vampires apparantly have been fighting each other in a war for hundreds of years. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a death-dealer (cool name) who hunts lycans due to a personal vendetta (isn't it always?). Selene encounters a human (Earl Haig's Scott Speedman!)whom the Lycans are really interested and the plot thickens from there. It pretty much becomes a power struggle with lots of side-plots, etc. Also, depending on the revenues made from this movie, it seems that this movie is the base for a whole slew of follow-up movies. Let's hope they can produce at least one sequel to this movie and also retain the current cast (which seem to be all low-budget actors).

When watching the movie, I couldn't help but notice the holes in it. For example, the fact that immortal, powerful vampires like Selene run away from Lycans in their wolf form. Can't vampires fly? Anyways, the little things didn't really matter as I found the movie really entertaining. Since Blade 2, there hasn't really been a good action vampire flick. This movie definitely satisfied the void. The acting was decent and the special effects were really good for a movie that was shot for about 20 million dollars. I especially liked the Lycan transformations, pretty fun stuff to watch. The last time I saw Kate Beckinsale it was in Serendipity. I admit, I fell held over heels for her (damn accent I tell you). She was pretty good in what seems to be her first action flick. Scott Speedman was alright as well and the chemistry between the two onscreen was good enough I think to make a sequel.

Overall, this movie provided enough entertaining action scenes and decent dialog to be rated as a good flick in my mind. It's a movie I definitely would get for my DVD collection. If you're into the vampire/gothic genre and like action, check this movie out. It's not the greatest flick in that genre but it rates as a good action flick similar to the Blade series. Just a quick note to the gore-haters out there. Not too much blood, but lots of violence.

Dragoncrypt