Underworld
Premise – 4/5
Come on, Vampires vs Werewolves? You had to see the semi-high score coming. Combined with ancient blood feuds, twisting conspiracies, cool punk gothic universe, and some badass blood transfusion type stuff it’s almost inevitable. Of course the movie gets points docked for copying off of things in the White Wolf universe, not that that’s a bad place to copy from, but they don’t even admit it!
OMG teh vampires stare at teh Hottie! Kate Beckinsale is marvelous in this movie, as well as in leather.
There are some holes here and there, nothing gaping or hard to accept, mostly it’s just things that are obviously setups for the oh so obvious sequel that will come out.
Cast – 3/5
I have to give it up for this, if only for Kate Beckinsale who turns into a dark goddess in this film, and kicks everyone’s ass. All the werewolves and vampires play their parts well, my only real beef was that Victor would sometimes switch between his strange brand of old english/high class accent, and a southern plantation owner. What was up with that?
Sometimes things are played out strangely, like the “love” between Michael and Selene, which is most OBVIOUSLY an infatuation. They have a nice little kiss scene though, I guess it works ok.
Sometimes I wished there was more dialogue between certain characters to fill in gaps in knowledge. They keep throwing things in and out of your way. It gets old sometimes.
Cinematography & Design – 4/5
The camera shots are all almost perfect, the lighting is perfect, and frankly, what could be wrong here? Really I should almost give it a five, ALMOST, unfortunately there were some things I could have used more of, more wide shots of the city, and afew of the shots in the sewer areas seemed really tight and didn’t show much. It was pretty standard fare in those areas and I think they could have done better. I was worried the fights would be copies of stuff from the Matrix and Blade, but they nixed the Kung Fu and really just went all out with the gun battles, and I have to give them probs for not using bullet time, bullet waves, bullet dodges, or any other similar effects associated with The Matrix. I was worried it was going to be a carbon copy of The Matrix but with werewolves, but it surprised me in that aspect. Kudos.
Special Effects – 5/5
Why do I rate it a five? For the simple fact that the werewolf tranformation looks straight out of An American Werewolf in London. Read: not craptastic!
Popcorn Factor – 4/5
It definitely held my interest. While it could have been “deeper” it didn’t need to be. I enjoyed it as it was and to those who didn’t I can only say “why?” Did you not SEE the awesome silver covered whips or the cool gunfights or the werewolf and the vampire trying to face each other down or any of that? This movie oozes enough cool that that’s all it needs, oh and a sequel. Because man, you wanna find out more… this movie definitely leaves you wanting, but not in an annoying frustrating way that means you can’t enjoy it, it just means you want more on top of what’s there. More time, more whatever. I can’t tell you how good the popcorn was with the film because I rarely actually eat popcorn with a movie anymore. Nachos is where it’s at!