underworld

It’s ironically appropriate that a film so concerned with the purity of various bloodlines is itself a shameless hybrid of “Blade” and “The Matrix”. There’s an undeniable appeal to the idea of a war between the eldritch creatures of the night but the film is so taken with the cleverness of its idea that it gets carried away with filling in the corners and forgets to make sure the film lives up to it great premise.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a Death Dealer, one of the elite Vampire soldiers tasked with hunting and killing Lycans, their sworn lupine enemies. When she falls in love with Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman), a human whom the Lycan leader Lucian (Michael Sheen) is desperately searching for, she finds herself drawn into a dark conspiracy which reaches all the way to the top of Vampire society.

Suffused in a relentless blue colour palate, the film manages to have a curiously Hammer House of Horror feel to it, thanks largely to the many scenes set in the grand vampire mansion. As will go on to become a hallmark of the series, there’s no shortage of British acting talent on show, with Bill Nighy on spectacularly unhinged and scenery chewing form as the grand fromage (or at least the grandest fromage currently awake) of the vampires, Viktor. Unfortunately (for now) we’re not treated to an extended ham-off between Nighy and Sheen as the story seems reluctant to focus on the werewolves at all, preferring to focus the bulk of its attention on vampire politics. As a result, the film is wildly uneven: either leadenly expository or explosively, kinetically wordless. The action is a slick blend of wire-fu and gratuitous blood spatters but there’s just too much insanely complex and duplicitous politics and power plays to cover to allow the action to really take over.

“Underworld” is yet another sci-fi/ fantasy epic to fall victim to the fallacy that what the cool kids really want in their movies is interminable council deliberations and political manoeuvring. After all, it’s what made the “Star Wars” prequels and the “Matrix” sequels so cool, right?

It has to be said, though, that Beckinsale makes for a very fetching vampire huntress and acquits herself admirably in both the acting and action stakes. While it may frequently get bogged down in its (under)world building, the fictional world it creates is interesting one, rich in possibilities to explore in future instalments. As a standalone film, the finale comes as a little bit of an anti-climax but viewed as a precursor to the sequel, it’s actually a pretty decent cliff-hanger.

“Underworld” is a reasonably even mix of style and substance and the fact you can tell the cast and crew are having an absolute ball with the gothic grandeur and broadness of it all puts it over the top. If only it had a little more bite, it could have been spectacular.

6/10 

logo

Related posts

If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, it’s probably Pokémon Go, not Ghostbusters (2016)

If there's something strange in your neighbourhood, it's probably Pokémon Go, not Ghostbusters (2016)

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’ve remade “Ghostbusters” with an entirely new cast? It’s been pretty low-key and uncontroversial with almost no internet chatter around it so it might have slipped past you. Jokes. It’s been everywhere, dividing movie fandom in a way that makes the...

Adrift (2018) Review

Adrift (2018) Review

The lure of a life of freedom on the open ocean is an easy one to understand, at least when the sea is a beautiful blue expanse, stretching out to an endless horizon. But the romantic picture postcard ideal doesn’t last long for Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley) and Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin) when...

Doctor Who: Thin Ice (S10E03) pits race against time travel.

Doctor Who: Thin Ice (S10E03) pits race against time travel.

Bill’s real world nous and sci-fi savvy is proving to be a real asset to the current season of Doctor Who. After last week’s detour into whimsical fairy tale storytelling, “Thin ice” brings us solidly back to a more grounded Who, and adds a dash of realism that has often been lacking in the...

If you’ve seen one of the lead actors of Code 8 (2020), you’ve seen Amell.

If you've seen one of the lead actors of Code 8 (2020), you've seen Amell.

America’s favourite brand of flavourless beefcake (available in regular and extra dour) are the marquee names in this tediously grimdark superhero tale, co-written and directed by Jeff Chan and based on his crowdfunded short film of the same name released in 2016. Like the original short, this...