While Underworld is full of a lot of simple, and some not so simple, sensory pleasures the first thing that struck me about this movie was just how loud it was. Bullets ricocheting off tile, subway train screeching to a halt, some very large, scary guy growling like a dog that’s just scented its first meal in weeks.
I have to agree, to a certain extent, with the reviewer at The Washington Post. She found this movie to be derivative, not only of other vampire and werewolf movies that have come before it but also of the host of neo-gothic epics we’ve seen in the past five years (The Matrix to name one). What the reviewer missed was that, at its core, this movie is even more derivative than that. Essentially, Underworld is the story of a vampire Juliet and a werewolf Romeo.
Selene (Kate Beckinsale (using her real voice for once; a great shock for American audiences I’m sure)) is a “death dealer” for a coven of vampires who live somewhere in Europe (one presumes London from the gorgeous, right-hand drive Jaguar she zooms about in for a good portion of the film). Vampires have been at war with the Lycans (werewolves…come on people…lycanthropy…the disease of being a werewolf) for thousands of years and have hunted them nearly to extinction. During the first fifteen minutes of the film, Selene discovers not only a nest of werewolves larger than any that has been seen for decades but also that these werewolves seem to be inordinately interested in a human, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman).
Meanwhile, all is not well in the “cafe society” that is the vampire clan. Kraven (Irish actor Shane Brolly doing, without a doubt, the worst American accent I’ve ever heard) wants Selene for his bride. She’s not having any, too busy mourning her vampire sire Viktor (Bill Nighy) who we later learn is not to awaken again for at least another 100 years.
The plot gets a few twists from there, including a massive betrayal of all that Selene believes to be true (well, you didn’t honestly think a guy named Kraven could be a hero, did you?), as well as an event that will shake the foundations of both the vampire and lycan worlds. Essentially, though, it gives away nothing of the film to tell you that during her quest for the truth Selene finds herself falling in love with Michael.
Does this movie plagiarize from a dozen other vampire films that came before it? Sure. Kind of hard to challenge a mythology that runs that deeply in American and western European culture with out borrowing a few bits and bobs. Does it indulge in the current fetish for skin tight black garments, flapping ankle-length leather coats, and boots meant for only either fashion or kicking doors in? Absolutely. And by the way, no one who has a four-year old should have an ass that looks that good in skin tight rubber. (It had to be said.) Is it worth full price to see this movie (currently $9 USD where I live)? Very few things are.
This is a pop-corn movie, escapism pure and simple. It could be better escapism. The whole film seems sort of tentative, as if the director and writer didn’t have enough faith in their own mythology to step up and say “this much is true, leave your disbelief at the door.”
All in all, this is a matinee movie, but a stylish one. I’m giving it three out of five:
