Underworld (2003)
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Selene is a vampire whose job it is to kill Lycans (werewolves) with the hopes of eventually wiping out that species. However, today she realizes that their battle in a subway station was focused around werewolves trying to kidnap a human which they’ve never done before. Seems this human is needed for some experimentation and if the vampires wish to survive as a species, they’ll need to get a little more involved. However someone is double-crossing the vampires and this very well could lead to the end of the vampire species, from within.
Overall: It’s almost too difficult to slam bad b-movie or indie horror films because, frankly, they are usually so low-budget, that they really couldn’t have done much better than the final product. Maybe you can rip the acting or the plot but basically you just can’t say much. Then films like this come out and well, you can’t stop writing about the problems. Let’s start at the beginning. The film begins with a war in a subway tunnel. The first thing that stands out...or fails to, is that the audience can’t figure out who the good guys or bad guys are. Everyone looks human and the two monster species have no difference on the surface. So immediately you just kind of have to wait until a winner appears, in order to realize whose side they are on. The other problem which becomes very obvious later on is that only the werewolves can truly change their appearance and the vampires just end up flashing their teeth. Then when the big battle scenes occur, there is so much gunplay and almost no use by the vampires of their “gifts.” Instead of a nice monster war it really comes off as a mafia war involving some mutating bodies. In addition, the film never gets you to love or hate one side or the other since each side has some tremendous flaws. When the truth finally reveals itself (spoiler) you realize that the bad guys were probably really the good guys after all...and they get what they wanted anyway. The character of Selene will soon learn that everything she knew was a lie and everything she fought against should have been what she fought for. As I said before, it was very difficult figuring out who was on which side and the fact that there are only 2 non-white people anyway didn’t help distinguish anything. The film was shot in Hungary (a favorite haunt of mine) so all the extras are white too. Here’s the kicker...the film tries to present itself as a monsterized “Romeo & Juliet” but that’s not accurate. Selene falls in love with the Michael character well before much happens and even the werewolves want him dead anyway. No, this film is better characterized as a battle between the KKK and the Black Panthers. Why? Here’s the origin of this vampire/werewolf war and stop me if you’ve heard this before. One group of people have enslaved another group of people. The masters keep the slaves as their servants who end up doing their bidding. Then when the two groups start to “inter-mix” with the potential for kids, the masters decide that they can’t have the mixing of the groups and want to kill their slaves. However the slaves decided they had enough and wish to fight back...and oh, a couple of the masters make deals with the slaves to help the slaves' side out. Finally, the older masters still believe in the antiquated notion of no inter-mixing and that slaves need to stay as slaves. Oh, but this was just supposed to be about vampires & werewolves wasn’t it? Pretty much sounds like the prelude to the United States’ Civil War to me. And that just doesn’t make for an original story or a good plot. Why not just have the 2 sides fighting because they don’t feel the planet is big enough for the 2 groups? Or maybe over the love of one woman (ala Helen of Troy) or maybe even just competing for food (blood of humans)? Sounds better than slaves fighting for their freedom, doesn’t it? The effects are very much of the “Matrix” variety with slow-mo’s and flips and stuff. And yes, it is quite obvious how much they were copying. In addition, the vampire effects and storyline were better in the 1st 2 “Blade” films and the werewolf effects were so much better 2 decades ago in “American Werewolf in London.” As for the final fight scene here, let’s just say that the battle isn’t really that good. There are some very obvious sound effect flaws since you can see the two creatures fighting but get almost no punching sounds. The effects are also weak because the "Michael" character seems to do so much damage with his scraping and clawing and yet Victor never shows any blood or wounds. It does set up for sequels with its ending but I’m just not sure it will even be worth bothering with. It’s not that I am disappointed in the film since I had no expectations anyway. It just had so many flaws. It really didn’t finish the thought of what truly happened when Kraven and Lucien fought and what they’ve been doing for the last 600 years given their “relationship.” In addition, you didn’t have to kill off Lucien anyway to make the story of the double-cross work. Basically once Lucien sees his girlfriend (a vampire) die, next thing we find out what he supposedly died but showed nothing of that interaction. They spent more time on the original reason the war started which is fine but then skipped everything surrounding Lucien’s “supposed” death. If Lucien was truly in league with the traitor, how come the traitor “got it” in terms of understanding the real truths and such and no one else did? He was in charge the whole time he surely could have told his minions while the 2 elders stayed asleep and basically converted the flock ahead of time. Right? And whatever happened to the chick who loved Kraven – she lets Selene escape and then permanently vanishes herself from the film. Oh well. Maybe they’ll fill in the holes next time. (05/2004): Well since my review, there has been released on DVD, an unrated, extended cut...with 2 discs no less. I have not caught this yet but here's what I do know. There are 12 minutes of additional footage & 11 minutes of replacement footage. From what I have read elsewhere, basically all that this 23 minutes is, is more fighting and a teeny bit of an additional subplot involving Erika. Comparison: Blade meets Blade 2 |
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Underworld Review Page
Underworld 2 Review Page
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