Haters gonna hate.
Underworld: Evolution managed to avoid being a sucky sequel by developing the mythos, adding in Derek Jacobi for no other reason than they could, allowing Scott Speedman's Michael Corvin character to be badass for the entire movie instead of just the end and giving the antagonist a real, understandable motive for his actions. Then of course we had Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans, which wasn't as good but can be forgiven as it had a girl that at least *looked* like Kate Beckinsale (and she was meant to), and providing an excuse to put Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen back on the screen. So, what would the fourth instalment provide?
As ever, people seeking to avoid spoilers should really not read this crap.
The movie starts with the new premise: Seline and Michael were going to live happily ever after until their old enemies the film industry stepped in with the need for another sequel. In this case, it took the form of humans finding out about vampires and werewolves and then dedicating themselves to blowing the shit out of them. Now, I like that. Fuck the Sookie Stackhouse books and their 'oh, that's OK then' mentality; if humanity found out that vampires and werewolves actually existed they'd do exactly what this movie portrays us doing, i.e. hunting every single one down and exterminating them. Cue also a doctor guy looking all melancholic as he talks about 'the infected' and how 'there is no cure'. Once more, most accents on show are English as the weird Underworld setting still isn't clear exactly where it's set, which works for me. Seline and Michael are leaving but get ambushed and blown up by some sort of grenade underwater. Apparently all the footage of Michael is either stand-in work or re-used stuff, since Scott Speedman doesn't actually appear in this.
It's entirely understandable why he wouldn't want to become typecast as a hearthrob
badass,especially given the other stellar film credits to his name. Oh, wait.
badass,especially given the other stellar film credits to his name. Oh, wait.
Then Selene wakes up in a cryogenic facility having just been unfrozen by 'Subject 2' (apparently she defrosted so quickly that the scientists couldn't just reverse it). The building's in chaos and she tumbles out naked (sadly Ms. Beckinsale wasn't willing to show anything, so CGI steam leaves it to our imagination) and then finds glass-fronted lockers with her catsuit, corset and New Rocks there ready and waiting for... when she wakes up? Sentimental value? Hell if I know, but it seems bizarre to leave her clothes there for what turns out to be TWELVE YEARS. Yes, she's been out for twelve years. Anyway, she kills a bunch of people but they let her go because she might lead them to Subject 2, because of course two superhuman killing machines with a grudge against you on the large is better than one.
Let me just stop this review here to say that she might be 38, but Kate Beckinsale is still damn fit. Also, 38 is just eight years older than me, so it's actually not surprising that I think that.
SHIIIINNNYYYYY...
Apparently Selene has some sort of 'connection' with Subject 2, who's a hybrid (according to a scientist she grabs and kills). She of course thinks that it's Michael, because she can occasionally see through Subject 2's eyes when they're close and of course she could see through Michael's eyes before... oh, no, wait, they couldn't. Anyway, she follows this hybrid (who's just killed a bunch of people, which brings in a detective to investigate) and gets followed in turn by Theo James playing David, a young vampire that blatantly wants to bang Selene (I swear I know him from something, but apparently he's never been in anything I've seen, so presumably I don't). Selene meets him then goes running off to save Michael from lycans (like he'd need it) but then it turns out that actually it's not Michael whose eyes she's been seeing through, it's a hybrid girl. They get chased by more lycans and hybrid girl goes all hybrid and rips one's head apart, and then her and Selene have a little chat and it turns out that they're mother and daughter. AWWWWWW. And Selene's first act towards her daughter is to drink her blood to get her memories. FOR FUCK'S SAKE WILL SOMEONE CALL SOCIAL SERVICES!
Meanwhile, the detective allows himself to be fobbed off by the main scientist at the research lab that was holding Selene and the girl (called Eve according to IMDB, but the movie never mentions that - even Selene's name is only mentioned once, I think). This lab is supposed to be developing a vaccine against getting infected, apparently. Not a massive amount of assertive investigation there, really. "I lost my son to this. There is no room for error with me." "Oh, okay then, we'll just ignore the reports of non-humans escaping then, sorry to bother you."
David takes Selene and Eve to his coven, which is headed by his dad Charles Dance, presumably for the sake of getting another old-school English actor in, although he doesn't really do much except say disapproving things. Then the lycans attack, including MONSTER LYCAN who's twice the size of a normal one and reacts to Selene's silver bullets like Hulk Hogan does to punches when he Hulks up. Well, not really, but it would have made the movie better. He knocks Selene out and then while she's out apparently Charles Dance hands Eve over to the lycans. This is despite the fact that Eve has already killed two of the things in the movie and does not, to my mind, look like she would be happy being taken anywhere. David died but Selene brings him back to life by cutting her palm, slitting open his chest and massaging his heart. According the camerawork there a vampire is full of transparent red liquid, a heart, and no other internal organs. Odd. Even more confusing for me is the part where David is Charles Dance's son despite the fact that they're both vampires. Do vampires have kids? If so, the part where a vamp doctor looks at Eve and says "she has no turning scars, I've never seen a child like this before" is a bit odd.
ANYWAY.
Selene sets off to rescue her daughter, and the best way to do this apparently is to go threaten the detective she observed investigating the 'lycan' attack that was actually Eve's work, and he's really eager to help her despite the fact that she's killed however many humans. But hey, if Kate Beckinsale approached me in that catsuit and asked for help I'd give it to her. Turns out he was married to a nurse who got bitten and vampirised, so he knows they're not all evil. Or something. At about the same time we find that the reason that all suspected lycans have come back with negative results over the last few years is because Antigen (the company who had Selene and Eve in the first place) is actually run by lycans, including the doctor doing the doleful "there is no cure" thing at the start who's in charge. They've got 'raw material' from Eve, who they now have back, and they've been doing injections on a lycan to give him her immunities so they're no longer fatally allergic to silver. This turns out to be the doctor's son (guess he didn't lose him after all!) with the 'unforseen side effects' that he gets much bigger, so that'd be the huge lycan Selene fought in the coven's base. This is presumably that because having killed the original vampire and the original werewolf they needed SOMETHING scary for Selene to fight in this movie.
Next time around, my vote goes to her blowing this
guy up with a grenade to the breadbasket.
guy up with a grenade to the breadbasket.
Selene goes into Antigen to get her daughter back, blows a lot of things up, kills a lot of lycans and finds Michael, still frozen ('Subject 0', in case you were wondering). She shoots the tank to start the defrosting process (I'm fairly sure you'd need a bit more science and a bit less gung-ho to do it safely, but never mind) and goes off to find her daughter, who's been drugged for some sort of operation procedure - since they mentioned estrogen levels I got the idea it might be something to do with reproduction, but I'm not sure. They run with her, cop guy stops the van, Selene encounters the big bastard werewolf and Eve wakes up and starts fighting the doc. The good guys win with a load of blood and guts, David turns up to help out by killing a few more lycans, then Eve gets visions through Michael's eyes and they rush up to the roof to find him gone. Selene does some sort of internal monologue about reclaiming the world and there you go, we're done. Clearly, David's role in this movie is so that he can become a romance interest in the next one if they're unable to persuade Scott Speedman to come out of Michael Corvin retirement.
The bad things about this movie:
- It really feels like "well, it's a shame Scott didn't want to be in this, but fuck it we'll do it anyway even though it would have made more sense to leave this modern version of the franchise on the note of ambiguous hopefulness at the end of Underworld Evolution."
- It feels like a set-up to Underworld 5.
- There's a fucking kid in it now. I am so not ready for this to become the Addams Family or something.
- There is no way that a David and Selene romance could be in the remotest way feasible. Beckinsale may still be fucking hot and certainly doesn't look *old*, but Theo James looks like a kid next to her, it'd feel like you were watching some supernatural version of The Graduate.
- The HUGE werewolf's normal form is Kris Holden-Ried. He looks like this:
The good things about this movie:
- Selene manages to explain her lack of motherly affection towards Crazy Hybrid Kid, and not by saying "when you freak out you look like you should be in The Ring" or "actually this is an action movie and we're not big on emotions in these" but by explaining that she woke up after twelve years to find the love of her life gone and a daughter she never knew with his eyes (not actually holding his eyes, although I wouldn't have been that surprised if they'd done that given all the other gore). "My heart's not cold; it's broken". Yeah, that actually worked for me.
- Selene's method of getting into anywhere is crashing through a skylight, no matter how secure the location is meant to be and whether or not it actually had a skylight in the first place.
- KATE BECKINSALE IN THAT FUCKING CATSUIT. I could quite happily watch a movie that consisted of Selene invigilating an exam as long as she was wearing that.
- Despite setting it in a world where humans have woken up to the existence of vampires and werewolves, they still kept it ambiguous as to where they are. Granted, when they show a building saying 'METRO POLICE' on it and the police's badge is just a big 'P' they've taken it a bit far, but it's better than finding out it's actually meant to be in Chicago now, or something.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It's not a masterpiece of movie making, it's not as good as the first two, but it's entertaining enough and I'd like to see where they go from here (although probably not if they can't get Scott Speedman back). I'm trying to think what other English actors there are left to put in it in the Nighy/Jacobi/Dance method of "let's see who we can get to be ridiculous this time", and I can only come up with one name:
Ho. Ho. Ho.
Let's face it, that would be AMAZING.
