Underworld: Evolution

Underworld: Evolution
Director: Len Wiseman
Story by Wiseman and Danny McBride, who wrote the screenplay.
Sony Pictures

Boy, did I ever hate the original Underworld. There's a quickie review of it in the archives of September 2003 and I didn't say too much about it other than it sucked. I hated the fact that the film took vampires and werewolves and armed them with guns. I thought that was a damn stupid premise. But, I know the original had some fans. I really have no idea why, but you just gotta' shrug and move on.

In this sequel, the vampire Kraven (Shane Brolly) is awakened, looking for an amulet. And it's the job of Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and hybrid Michael (Scott Speedman) to stop him before he nabs it and does whatever it does. There's the issue of family and origins of vampires and werewolves that needs to be figured out. The key to figuring out everything comes from Alexander Corvinus (Derek Jacobi, who becomes the second knighted actor this year, after Ben Kingsley, to perform in material well-beneath him). And somewhere in here, there's apparently enough romantic steam to build a love scene between Beckinsale and Speedman, appropriately blocked so that you can get cheated yet again in this movie.

Yep, it's about as simple as that. Of course, there's a lot of gun-blazing to be done between supernatural creatures--really it's just for show because the damn guns don't do a damn thing except tear through flesh harmlessly. And just when you ask the question, "Why doesn't Selene just use those mega-bomb things we've seen blow up entire buildings?" the movie has an unsatisfying answer for you (but, oh, how pretty it looks!). I've seen numerous accounts about how this is better than the first, which should be good news to fans, but I actually thought it was worse than the original.

But what do I know? Fans will probably eat it up.