Doesn't live up to it's potential, but it still howls and hisses

Rating: 8/10 (20 September 2003)

Vampires. Werewolves. Kate Beckinsale in tight black vinyl for boys. Scott Speedman without a shirt for girls. This is Underworld, a tale of warring creatures that culminates at present day. The bookends of the war involves a man and a woman from each species falling for eachother...which is forbidden. Selene, played by Kate, is part of a clan of Vampires that is central to the vampire side of the war. Lucian is the alpha male of werewolves on the other side who have some twists of their sleeves. Theoretically this is a genre fan's dream come true, but unfortunatly it doesn't live up to it's mind blowing potential. I'll start by telling you guys what is exceptionally good about it, then bring on my gripes.
The setting of the film is a very dark, blue hue (the whole film is in blue tones) that serves well concerning that in many cultures, the color blue represents death, and Vampires are of the undead. The color palette was appropriate. The entire Vampire cast is exceptionally attractive, especially Selene and her blonde "rival". The costumes the vampires wear are elaboratly rich, but not obvious (aside from the black vinyl). They are of a higher society, which can be good or bad, but with the plot elements in this film, it's good. See, in mythology, werewolves were kept as servents for vampires, and Underworld helps elaborate a little more by vampires referring to them as "daylight protectors" while they sleep at night. These creatures are at war, but werewolves are still kept more so as bottom feeders, living under the streets in sewers in large packs. The werewolves, or "lycans", wear ratty and tattered clothing, lots of heavy jackets with hoods that can be easily discarded so they can transform without ruining anything. The lycans looks dirtier, grittier than the clean cut and porcilin skinned vampires. The differences are clear, for that part anyway.
The acting is quite good. I didn't expect much from Speedman considering that he was a WB actor, but he did quite good amongst the more colorful cast. The man who plays Lucian is charismatic, considering his long hair, beard, and dark beedy eyes. Craven was a winer vampire, complaining too much because he is "more beurocrat than a warrior" to be a leader, and the actor pulls this off convincingly. The true elder of the Vampires, Victor is vicous, and deceptive. Most of his screentime, he had a lot of make up, and screw Ken Kirzinger, this guy can "eye act." The only flaw out of the actor's I'd have to say would be the large "michael clark duncan" replica. It's not that his performance is bad, it's his voice that sounded like it was straining too hard to be deep and imposing. I tried not to giggle when he carried conversations with Lucian. But when he got physical, and began yelling, he redeems himself.
The pacing builds like any pace for a film should, which is move smoothly and gradually to a powerful climax. The climax is where all the action is. There are peaks and valleys in the pacing that feels comfortable. After one tense scene, appropiately there is a calm scene that comes after to let the audience simmer down.
I do love the homage to the werewolf howl in An American Werewolf in London. It's still to this day the creepiest howl created, and they used it here in spades.
Now my gripes:
Where are the humans? Other than the opening 10 minutes, Scott Speedman's character, Michael, and his friend, there are not people running around town. There seems to be no traffic. I know it's everything takes place at night, but I have not seen any metropolis that sleeps at night. When there are werewolf raids going on in apartment complexes, how come the nieghbors don't complain, or even get curious? I know that a plotpoint in the film is that Vampires have begun cloning blood, so they don't have to prey on humans, but come on! Werewolves prey on them too!
Vampires, other than Kate's character, seem to be very lazy creatures. Most of the film, most of the vampires are seen sitting in fancy eurotrash clothing drink what we can only assume is cloned blood. The soldier vampires seem to be afraid to step into combat with the werewolves, other than Selene, who does a fair share of booty stomping.
Werewolves are seen too rarely. For once, I'm not bothered by the CGI shapeshifting. I was expecting bad rendering like in An American Werewolf in Paris, but instead we get was Hulk's transformations should have looked like. But, when there are werewolves on screen, you barely see them, there are too many quick cuts. But here's the worst part about the werewolves: their design. Their faces look great, but can they move their necks?
Their necks and heads are so bulky and Hyena shaped that it makes the werwolves look like a highschool mascott. The lighting hides the limited mobilty of it's face, but it doesn't hide the fact that these aren't werewolves, but in fact were-hairless-hyenas. Seriously, these are suppose to be wereWOLVES, as in those hairy dog like creatures! I'm sick of these hairless werewolf designs. My roomate said a few months back that they don't have to have hair because they don't have to hide flaws in their FX. I looked at him like he was an idiot. In the past, they didn't design the werwolves with hair so they can hide flaws in their special FX, they put hair on them because they are WEREWOLVES! Argh. This was a setback for Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps as well.

I'd also like to know why there were not any female werewolves in the film. There was not one in any long shots of the werwolves in their dens. In every pack there is an alpha female and several (forgive the term) bitches. Just curious where they were in this whole thing.
****tiny but unimportant spoiler*********
Biggest flaw: Sunlight bullets? That was retarded. Period. The silver nitrate was cool, but that ultraviolet light bullets was just pretty stupid on the writer's behalf. But besides the sunlight bullets, there was too much gun fights over all.
*****end tiny unimportant spoiler********
If I was a werwolf, I'd much rather tear my enemies apart tooth and claw, than whipping out an oozy filled with sunlight bullets.
Sheesh. There are times the werewolves drop their cloths and go at it, but the vampires still gunfight against them.

That's it for my gripes, which from what I said, isn't too much of a biggy, but enough to tarnish it from being a really great genre film. Don't expect too much horror, because there isn't any. This is strickly an action thriller that uses horror creatures. When I review, I try not to give much plot away, so if you find that I dont explain the plot in a straitforward manner, remember I intended it that way. I hate it when reviewers spoil things for you, even if they don't give away the surprise ending, but they'll say there is one which makes you try to think of what it is before it's there. I tried not to do that.

My rating: B+