Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

"The next installment in the blockbuster franchise, UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS follows Vampire death dealer, Selene (Kate Beckinsale) as she fends off brutal attacks from both the Lycan clan and the Vampire faction that betrayed her. With her only allies, David (Theo James) and his father Thomas (Charles Dance), she must stop the eternal war between Lycans and Vampires, even if it means she has to make the ultimate sacrifice."

Considering that I've already bitched and whined as much as is humanly possible about how disappointing this entire series of "black and blue films" is overall, all I'm really doing by reviewing "Blood Wars" is repeating what I said about "Underworld: Awakening" four years ago but with a few extra names dropped in. Sadly, I've watched these movies get worse with every sequel (or prequel), and I'd almost forgotten what happened in the last one until I read my own review.

Suffice it to say that with a running time of just over an hour and 20 minutes (including 4 minutes of recaps at the start and several more minutes of flashbacks scattered throughout), there isn't a lot of anything new here. It's already obvious that it's not going to be the last of the "Underworld" series, but it's easily the weakest so far and reeks of being another half-arsed filler. "Underworld" really should have been a TV series after the first theatrical release if this is the way they are going to play it.

Obviously, Kate Beckinsale looks fantastic again. Also of note is Lara Pulver as Semira. She looks like a more perfect version of a young Sigourney Weaver from certain angles, but occasionally she has the air of Eva Green about her too.

It's almost the same deal with Theo James who reminds me of a younger Julian McMahon, Bradley James who looks like Mads Mikkelsen playing Le Chiffre in "Casino Royale", and James Faulkner who resembles Albert Finney way too much. Maybe the casting director thought they were trying to make a lookalike compendium of the latest James Bond films because that's what they've ended up with, give or take a few werewolves and vampires.

Whatever the case, the plot is weak, characters aren't given enough time to develop, and every slow scene seems to be designed as a hindrance rather than an attempt to progress the story. Consequently, if you only see the last 5 minutes, it will be enough to prepare you for the next installment, because the padded action sequences are nothing memorable either. A couple of important characters are completely wasted, but I'll say no more than that. Maybe it's an intentional contempt for the audience, or maybe it's just inept filmmaking, I'll let you decide for yourself.

Although the choreography improves later on, the majority of the action scenes are little more than a bunch of extras who no one cares about getting confusingly slaughtered in the background to the even more confusing duels between the main protagonists. There's never any sense of threat or danger involved due to none of the characters having enough screen time for you to get to know much about them.

The be all and end all of this "Underworld" movie is that it seems to only exist for completists and fans who will buy it anyway. If you haven't seen any of the others, you won't know what to make of it, who anyone is, or why anything is happening, and even with prior knowledge, "Underworld: Blood Wars" will still be very disappointing.

Already showing in Europe since the start of December, American audiences will have to wait until January for the theatrical release. For those who are wise to these things, the fact that it's a "January movie" says it all.

Underworld: Evolution (2006)

"Picking up directly from the previous film, vampire warrior Selena and the half werewolf Michael hunt for clues to reveal the history of their races and the war between them."

Apart from being overloaded with continuity errors, plot holes, and other goofs, "Underworld: Evolution" at least attempted to flesh out the story created in "Underworld" and retroactively turn that film into part one of a greater epic. Unfortunately, it also added some new characters who were even more one-dimensional than the first lot.

If I had been looking for any character development in "Underworld: Evolution", I would have been sorely disappointed. It was just more of the same with everyone being underused as ciphers between the spectacular CGI-fuelled action scenes. I must admit that I really liked the action and tried to just enjoy it for what it was rather than scrutinize it too closely. Realism and the laws of physics have no place in these movies.

With a budget nearly twice as big as that of the original "Underworld", the effects guys created some quite exhilarating and gory sequences in a few places. The werewolves, or Lycans as I should call them, were some seriously nasty-looking beasts and, of course, the Marcus bat-creature stole the show completely with his wings.

Marcus, as played by Tony Curran who I remembered most as Lenny from season two of "This Life" (back when BBC2 dramas were still good) and for being a very Scottish viking in "The 13th Warrior" (1999), was really impressive to begin with, but then turned into yet another overacted villain with about as much menace in human form as an angry rice pudding. It was a shame really because the opening scenes promised so much more in terms of kingship and his more regal nature.

Kate Beckinsale, on the other hand, was exactly the same as before which pleased me for purely sinister reasons. I appreciated the nudie bits and her slickly choreographed athleticism. I wish I could say that I cared about her character, but, unfortunately, there was nothing there to care about other than the way she looked. As an immortal vampiress, Selene just wasn't all that interesting until about five minutes before the end.

I don't have much to say about Michael (Scott Speedman) either. Once again, he was just sort of there in the background until it was time for him to get his ass kicked by something meaner than he was. He was kind of like a more supernatural version of Xander from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in that respect but without any charisma or a sense of humour.

One character who I think needed more screen time was Tanis as played by Steven Mackintosh. I suppose he did all he needed to do in the story by revealing the necessary information about the key and William the werewolf's dungeon, but it was almost as much of a waste as casting Sir Derek Jacobi as a far less impressive Corvinus than the mythology up to that point had me expecting.

Apart from having an almost Biblical unwillingness to control his offspring, the only thing Corvinus did was turn Selene into a super-vampire who could eventually do the thing which he wouldn't. Not to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it (even though you've had six years to do so!), the final battle was nicely done but very predictable.

According to the IMDb, "Underworld: Evolution" initially did only slightly better than "Underworld" at the box office and then was lucky to get its money back. I don't remember the reviews at the time, but I have vague memory that "Underworld: Evolution" was considered a bit of a turd. Since 2006 was a pretty bad year for films anyway, I didn't bother watching it or anything else at the cinema apart from James Bond. Having only ever seen "Underworld: Evolution" on DVD, I think I might have enjoyed it slightly more as some mindless entertainment on the big screen.

As a sequel which tried harder than most to be a real part two rather than a recreation of the same story, I don't consider "Underworld: Evolution" to be a complete waste of time, but I probably would have been better off watching some blue and black paint dry.

Underworld (2003)

"Selene, a beautiful vampire warrior, is entrenched in a war between the vampire and werewolf races. Although she is aligned with the vampires, she falls in love with Michael, a werewolf who longs for the war to end."

After much deliberation (not to mention procrastination), I decided to rewatch "Underworld" and its first sequel again to see if I liked them any better now that several years have passed since I first saw them. I did this for two reasons: one, I'm pretty sure that watching so many lame movies in a row has rotted my brain to the point where I can barely tell the difference between a good movie or a bad one anymore, and two, I couldn't remember a damned thing about any of them except that they were all in blue and black.

I was talked into buying the DVD of "Underworld" when it came out by a workmate of mine. He was slightly obsessed with it (plus "The Matrix" trilogy and all manner of other embarrassingly dull sci-fi movies). Somehow he wore me down enough to buy it first, knowing full well that I'd end up giving it to him once I'd watched it. I was glad to get rid of the thing because it not only confused me but almost bored me to tears in places. We both worked in Woolworth's at the time so I got it cheaper by using my 20% staff discount card. It was no great loss to give a DVD away to someone who seemed to genuinely appreciate it.

Having now acquired copies of the first three "Underworld" films from my local pawn shop just to complete the "4 for $10" deal when I couldn't find anything else which I wanted, it seemed silly to not revisit them all back-to-back especially as I've written a review of the most recent one, "Underworld: Awakening". I'd already reviewed "Rise of the Lycans" a couple of years ago too so I knew I wouldn't have to write anything about that ever again.

Anyway, as things turned out, I'm slightly ashamed to say that I kind of enjoyed "Underworld". I'm not sure if it was just because I couldn't take my eyes off Kate Beckinsale or if I genuinely got interested in the story. If I had to put money on it, I'd go with the first of those answers because, honestly, I could barely understand what was going on.

Okay, so I got that Kate Beckinsale was supposed to be a vampire and a stone-cold werewolf killer, and Scott Speedman was the last of a bloodline of humans who could become a hybrid of a werewolf and a vampire, but I still don't know what the point of either of them was. Was there supposed to be some horror involved in their relationship? Was it just another story of star-crossed lovers set against a background of war in a fantasy version of Czechoslovakia? Where was the focus?

I understood that Michael Sheen was only a superficially righteous werewolf leader called Lucian (mispronounced as "Looshun") who was trying to create this hybrid. But to what end? Was the hybrid a weapon, an ally, or just another immortal monster with no purpose?

Bizarrely, for those of you who don't know, Michael Sheen was the real life father of Kate Beckinsale's daughter even though this was the film in which she first met and started to fall for the director, Len Wiseman, who, of course, we all know she later married. Showbiz people have the weirdest relationships, but the stuff which must have been going on behind the scenes just made me scratch my head in disbelief. Just add the fact that both her ex and her future lover were watching her pretending to be attracted to Scott Speedman's character, and I'm surprised that the amount of conflicting emotions didn't end in some terrible tragedy. I never thought that Kate Beckinsale was a very good actress before, but knowing the back story, I now think she must be one of the most professional in the business. To give even more credit where it's due, everyone involved in "Underworld" must be like that because it turned out to be a very high quality production.

With that slight digression and praise out of the way, I still didn't really like the story. I found all the stuff with Bill Nighy as "Viktor the vampire" particularly confusing, couldn't work out who was a good guy and who was bad guy, and whatever was going on between Lucian and Kraven (Shane Brolly) looked as if it was actually a good thing. Wasn't their deal supposed to lead to a peace treaty of some kind? I couldn't figure out how turning Scott Speedman into a hybrid was supposed to achieve that, but never mind. Somehow reanimating Viktor before his time made a mess of everything and, presumably, that was all there was to the plot. It was all secrets and lies, fighting for the sake of fighting, and it didn't seem to matter which side anyone was on because everyone thought they were doing the right thing.

I know that "Underworld" wasn't a box office success and I can see why. The film looked fantastic (albeit in only two colours most of the time and sometimes in three or four), but it was ultimately a character based story with no great depth to any of the characters.

The action scenes were incredibly stylish, the CGI was state of the art at the time, and all the effects (including the make-up and creature designs) were great. But what actually happened over more than two hours other than setting up a fantasy world in which a lot of one-dimensional but extremely well-acted characters got killed off?

Nearly nine years on from when I first watched "Underworld", my opinion hasn't changed that much. Although I was more entertained this time and could recognise the effort that went into making the film, on both emotional and intellectual levels, I still wasn't satisfied by it.

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

"When human forces discover the existence of the Vampire and Lycan clans, a war to eradicate both species commences. The vampire warrioress Selene leads the battle against humankind."

Apart from creating the opportunity to ogle Kate Beckinsale, I've never understood the appeal of the "Underworld" movies. The plots are weak, the mainly blue and black colour schemes are annoying, and the CGI always looks like something out of a computer game.

Thus, I wasn't expecting a lot from the latest installment, "Underworld: Awakening", which was just as well since it turned out to be only more of the same but with two extra colours added to the palette. Golden lights and more human flesh tones abound, even though it was, yet again, mainly all in blue and black. There's even a lot of blood this time which almost completed a reworking of the old newspaper or dead penguin joke about being "black and blue, and red all over".

True to form, the best part of the movie is Kate Beckinsale, who manages to get completely naked at one point without showing any of the bits which the boys want to see. She's so thin and flat-chested that I don't really think there'd be all that much to see there anyway. She's coming up to forty years old now so the appeal of seeing a nude middle-aged woman isn't that great even if it's Kate Beckinsale. I'm sure she's still got a couple more "Underworld" movies left in her before she has to start playing mothers for the rest of her career though.

You're fooling nobody with that old NES Zapper, Selene.

In spite of not really having a story which goes anywhere or any characters other than the regulars whose names are spoken enough times to know who they are, the action sequences are top-notch this time. The opening escape sequence from the Antigen building is the best, although several of the fights with Lycans are quite spectacular too considering that the Lycans are generated by a computer and Selene's weapons can magically reload themselves. You have to forget any attempts at realism with these "Underworld" movies anyway.

A couple of once big names, Stephen Rea and Charles Dance, join in the fun and games this time, but only Stephen Rea has much of a part. He's pretty good in it too. The barely recognisable Charles Dance is only a kind of substitute for Bill Nighy, since he's from that age group of actors and they look a bit similar to each other now. If you've ever wondered if all old people end up looking the same, your question has been answered.

"Underworld: Awakening" is mainly a comicbook-style action movie which just happens to have vampires and werewolves as the main characters. I don't really think of any of the "Underworld" series as being true horror films any more than I would count "Resident Evil" or "Twilight" as being anything other than very fringe members of the genre.

I'm not sure who the target audience is meant to be for "Underworld: Awakening", but the inclusion of a hybrid vampire/werewolf child suggests that this was meant for children who like to identify with the younger characters. I don't get how that is supposed to work as, bizarrely, the whole series has been R-rated from the beginning. None of the "Underworld" movies have ever felt like they were meant for adults (or even older teenagers with any taste) so I'm at a loss to explain how "Underworld" managed to reach this third sequel. From the way it ended, I'm pretty sure that there will be another sequel eventually too.

Even though sexy Selene is the most badass that she's ever been, I'm still going to have to put "Underworld: Awakening" back to sleep in "The Dungeon". Personal taste aside, it just isn't a very good film.