This film bites... literally! (Underworld (DVD))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Underworld (DVD)
Date:	31/08/04 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Decent plot, Put together very well for the most part, Kate Beckinsale in tight, black leather

Disadvantages: Little details detract from overall experience

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a "Death Dealer" vampire. This means that she continues the fight in the centuries old war against the Lycans (lycanthropes or werewolves) who are their mortal (or is that immortal?) enemies. The origins of the war are seemingly lost in time with vampire rules forbidding anyone to investigate the past, which is a bit strange. Selene and some of her chums manage to follow some Lycans as they appear to be following human Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) for reasons which are not immediately obvious.

After stopping Corvin's kidnapping, Selene returns to the vampire's coven with evidence of new weapons being used by the Lycans and a theory that Michael Corvin is somehow important to the Lycans.

Kraven (Shane Brolly), the vampire leader (or actually, the bloke left in charge while the proper people all have a few centuries of kip) dismisses Selene's theory out of hand to concentrate on the upcoming Awakening (a ceremony to reanimate on of the Elders).

Selene, missing the advice of her mentor Viktor (Bill Nighy), who's one of the sleeping Elders, decides to go off investigating on her own fearing that the Lycan's interest in Michael Corvin means trouble for the vampires.

The first thing to notice is that it's all a bit Matrix mixed with a touch of Blade. A lot of the action takes place at night (unsurprising when you remember that vampires cannot tolerate daylight) and it rains a lot. The vampires are mostly dressed in black and Beckinsale spends much of her time dressed in tight black leather looking quite foxy with her pale complexion and black bob haircut. Despite the fact the budget was only around the $20 million mark, the film doesn't look cheap at all with excellent sets and very good special effects.

The attention to detail is quite astounding, although one or two bits of vampire and werewolf lore have been ignored. So while vampires are portrayed as well
dressed, graceful creatures with a defined social structure, werewolves are portrayed as shaggy, brutish people who are seemingly all male. This is evident in social interactions between the creatures and in combat.

That makes the errors even more confusing. Werewolves who are able to change at will? Vampires who cast reflections? Vampires with heartbeats? These errors, while not central to the plot, could easily have been eliminated.

It's easy to see that Underworld has been influenced by what has gone before. The Matrix offered similar black leather, guns and slo-mo combat, the Vampire Chronicles books offered up the vampires-as-people-not-monsters concept and Blade gave the modern twist on weapons. The visual style has been seen in plenty of other films such as Dark City, Batman (Tim Burton's ones) and The Crow.

Debutant director Len Wiseman (sounds more like a character in Eastenders) does a decent job of taking all of these things and combining them very well into a rollicking two hour supernatural popcorn ride. There's no need to engage your brain as everything's explained to you, even down to the vampire and werewolf lore (just in case you aren't a D20-rolling Dungeons & Dragons nerd). There were two negative points to the film in terms of plot, though. The first was the almost inevitable, but quite pointless, romance between Selene and Corvin. It didn't add to the plot at all and seemed forced, almost as if they decided at a late stage that there should be some romance in there. Luckily, it's not given too much screen time. The second is the final battle. I can't really say too much about it without giving away plot details, but I found it quite unsatisfactory.

Acting varies across the cast with Beckinsale appearing rather wooden (I am unsure if this was a choice for her character to be rather emotionless or an inability to play the role as it actually fits the plot quite well). Both Shane
Brolly and Sophia Myles (Erika, a vampire who is jealous of Kraven's attraction to Selene) give good showings as power hungry people and Bill Nighy chews plenty of scenery as boss vampire Viktor. Michael Sheen does well as Lucian, the top Lycan, playing the role of tired leader with a master plan to a bunch of animals. The weakest link, assuming that Beckinsale's performance is deliberate, was Scott Speedman as Michael Corvin. Somehow, he just never managed to convince me that he didn't face gun battles, vampires and werewolves every day of his life.

My main complaint would be that Underworld just falls short of what it could have been, given the ingredients. The story doesn't require you to see the Lycans in wolf form, so the, admittedly excellent, transformation effects could have been scrapped and the money used elsewhere (perhaps showing us what the supernatural creatures are really capable of). The odd shot of vampires falling from great heights unharmed is all well and good, but surely those blessed (or cursed) with vampiric abilities should be able to do better at shooting weapons? Both vampires and Lycans waste large amounts of bullets in gunfights, but it would have been better to show the vampires as more skilful, methodical warriors.

Sadly, the one or two minor errors do end up detracting from the overall experience. It's the little details rather than huge errors that end up dropping Underworld from a very good genre film to a decent way to spend two hours. The sequel begins shooting later this year, so let's hope that the mistakes are learned and Wiseman can produce a film that Underworld really could, and should, have been.

Three stars, although you can add an extra one if Kate Beckinsale in black leather floats your boat.

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