Beckinsdale Flick Vamped Down
By Tim Anderegg
A&F Associate

Underworld, a new movie featuring an epic war between werewolves and vampires, sets up a premise that should imply gruesome battles, “Matrix style” fight scenes, and a badass soundtrack– much like one might expect from Blade 3.

Unfortunately, this movie’s budget and the ambition of its producers seemingly were nowhere near that of either of the two Blade movies. A generic-looking Scott Speedman plays the leading male role, a human man sought after by the werewolves for a reason at first unknown to the vampires. Kate Beckinsale, who you may or may not remember from Pearl Harbor, plays the leading female role of Selene, a vampire whose family was killed hundreds of years ago. Her life is only spared because one of the vampire elders, Victor, who is played by a somewhat monotonous and uninteresting Bill Nighy, decides she’d make a good vampire.

Surrounded by mediocre acting, Beckinsale stands out and adds some variety to the cast, along with Michael Sheen, who plays the werewolf leader Lucien. Both manage to pull of somewhat appealing characters.

Good acting and casting are not generally associated with horror/action flicks such as this– a fact that would not be a problem if the special effects, fight scenes, and general mood of the movie were more up to par. However, Underworld, while having a few good fight scenes, never quite meets expectations in this realm either.

Sure, the werewolves are kind of cool looking, but the vampires sadly lack motivation, mostly just lounging about their mansion while Beckinsale does all of the work. The majority of the fight scenes consist of people in black leather shooting a variety of guns at each other, while lacking in the quality of effects seen in movies like The Matrix and Blade.

Occasionally someone pulls off a bad-ass trick, and usually once or twice in every extended fight scene we actually get to see one of the werewolves transform and kick some ass, but in general nothing keeps up the suspense. Knowing that everyone involved is essentially immortal doesn’t help much either, since they just keep shooting and throwing sharp metal objects at each other to no avail. Even in the big fight scene at the end between Victor and a werewolf-vampire hybrid, most of the action consists of the two hissing and growling at each other.

While the original concept of the film may have been good, the plot line and script writing do not live up to their potential. Most of the lines are predictable and formulaic, not to mention poorly delivered. By the end of the movie, I didn’t really like either the vampires or the werewolves and had little sympathy for any of the characters.

This movie was the director Les Wiseman’s first attempt, which does give him some leeway, considering his credentials before this were working in the art department on both Stargate and Independence Day. Underworld seems like a good idea that he just couldn’t quite bring to fruition.

I’m not saying that Underworld has absolutely no redeeming value. Both Beckinsale and Speedman manage to be pretty sexy throughout, and it’s always cool to see vampires and werewolves kicking each other’s asses, even if it’s not well executed. Underworld is just not worth paying nine dollars to see in the theater. Instead, wait a few months, do whatever it is you do to get yourself in the mood for a mediocre action flick, and rent it from Blockbuster.