UNDERWORLD (2003)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
I am a sucker for rain-drenched cities with a monochromatic glow where people stand on medieval statues looking below at city life. The problem is that such a visual has become a cliche and rarely becomes anything more than that. We have seen dozens of films featuring rain-drenched cities where people wear black leather, dating back to 1982's "Blade Runner" up until the most recent "Matrix" film. Monochromatic hues and tones have become so basic to movies that I am surprised they haven't gone back to the days of black-and-white yet. "Underworld" is another one of those loud heavy-metal, MTV-razor-cut spectacles where something happens every few seconds, even when nothing is really happening.
We are in some anonymous city where the rain never stops and the sun never sets. This is "Blade Runner" country where Kate Beckinsale (in the film's first shot) is perched on some architectural crevice overlooking the city. She is like a hawk waiting for her prey. It turns out she is Selene, a sour, pouty vampire who is on the hunt for werewolves. Her mission is to hunt them down and kill them all, and if I understood correctly, the hairy beasts are headed for extinction. The paper-thin plot involves a 1000-year war between vampires and werewolves. But vampires do not waste their time by fighting it mano-a-mano with the werewolves (referred to here as "lycans"). Instead, like Selene, they pack some firepower with silver bullets meant to implode on impact. Werewolves also use guns meant to cause harm to vampires and so we are treated to an interminable opening shootout at a subway station that looks like deleted footage lifted from "The Matrix." The war continues. Then we learn that a descendant, who is a werewolf, has the unique blood type where he can be bitten by a vampire and not die; rather, a gradual merging of wolf and vampire can create a new race. Good idea, but that is all it ever becomes.
"Underworld" is an interminable, numbing exercise in nothingness. All style and no substance is a cliche as well, but I can't imagine calling this film anything but. If Selene had been given more depth (particularly her infatuation with a werewolf) and if the backstory involving this war had more bite, then we might have had a visually enticing new entry in the horror genre. What we get is every single stylistic trick that can be made with a camera, not to mention yet another one of those "Matrix" slow-motion flips and leaps in the air. But the vampires are nothing more than black-leather-jacketed-spandexed misfits who occasionally bare some fangs - they are amazingly skillful with guns and cell phones (and driving) but you wouldn't know they are vampires unless they bit you. And since the film is set at night, the werewolves are barely visible, though there are some split-second transformation sequences. Kate Beckinsale is beautiful to look at and the concept is somewhat of interest. Alas, it's all bark and no bite.
