This movie was a complete BUST

Rating: 1/10 (19 April 2005)

Underworld was a travesty.
A complete and utter travesty.
This movie was touted as featuring a battle between werewolves and vampires. Yet the movie rarely saw any real combat besides overly clichéd gun battles. The plot, for much of the movie is non-existent. Werewolves were once slaves to vampires until one werewolf (just a side note werewolves are called Lycans in this film, by the way) took a vampire for a bride. Her father, Viktor, kills his own daughter and makes Lucian, the Lycan in question, watch. This starts the war. Mainly cause Viktor feared the creation of a Lycan-Vampire mixed breed.
All this comes out in about the last ten to fifteen minutes or so of the movie by the way.
Meanwhile, we have Selene, a 'Death Dealer' (a vampire who hunts werewolves), who hunts them out of revenge, falling in love with Michael Corvin (I'm having flashbacks to the hideous Crow 3 here folks, even if the guy's last name IS from Crow 2) who's the descendant of some guy named Corvinus or something like that. Supposedly he has the potential to become both vamp and Lycan. Which he does.
And yet in the end it's SELENE who kills off Viktor, who had killed her family 600 years prior to the events of the film. This is another clichéd plot twist. I mean come on. "Werewolves killed my family, so I kill them to satiate my lust for vengeance against werewolves who may have already been killed anyway." Yeah, who the hell DIDN'T see that coming by the time this movie was ended? Seriously, show of hands.
Any takers? No? Good for you. It's too completely obvious.
Here's the kicker. Lucian (Lucien?) has been trying to turn himself into a cross-breed Lycan-Vamp, which would make him more powerful than either race. Well, as you might expect, Michael gets bitten by a Lycan. Goes through most of the movie having 'hallucinations' which are actually Lucian's memories of what started the war between the two races. Gets shot and nearly dies because of some idiot SOB (who is Viktor's second in command of course.), gets bitten by Selene, and becomes the hybrid Viktor is so afraid of seeing come into existence. Cue the only DECENT fight scene in this movie. Viktor and Michael go at it pretty well. It looks like it's going to become the sole redeeming quality in this movie. Then Viktor gets Michael in a headlock. (Hey, when did this turn into a wrestling match?) Guess what. Selene gets involved and slices Viktor's head in half diagonally.
Making the concept that Michael is supposed to be more powerful than both Lycans and Vampires (and let me point out here that Lycans in this film are also supposed to be immortal once changed, and that all either race has to do is a simple bite.), abso-fricking-lutely POINTLESS! Whoever wrote this movie must have been on crack. I mean it. The story was contrived, the 'fight scenes' shallow except for Michael vs. Viktor, and they actually managed to RUIN that fight by having Selene get in the killing blow. This type of flagrant sexism in horror movies in which the villain/monster/alien from beyond/whatever almost always dies at the hands of a woman has always dragged down my enjoyment of most horror flicks in general, and utterly annoys me throughout Underworld as Selene is like a female Blade in reverse with NONE of the potential that Blade has to be in potential danger even if he's just faking it. I never get the impression that Selene is in any way harmable because she's far too much like Blade mixed with the Punisher mixed with Daredevil. She also is the driving force of this film, which means that Michael, whom she's supposed to be in love with, and who, from the apparent standpoint of the movie, is supposed to be the character around which all of this utter stinkbomb revolves, is little more than a footnote, and appears in barely a quarter of the movie. He is more or less just a helpless idiot throughout most of the film. Then, they remove any power and presence his transformation is supposed to give him by not only having Viktor in a position to kill him, which should have ended with Viktor's hold being broken by Michael's supposedly superior strength speed and power, but by having him be rescued by Selene, who has basically been the only character who really DOES -anything- in this entire movie.
I put off buying Underworld for almost two years because I was wary of it. Mostly because of the way I disliked the werewolf costumes in the trailers. I will admit, I have come to like the werewolf suits, but not enough to consider them a saving grace of the film.
This film managed to ruin the one thing which could have redeemed it in my eyes. And sadly, it hints at a possible sequel at the end with another of the Vampires who is supposedly as old as Marcus and possibly a halfbreed himself taking over as the main villain. Which means this pile of utter waste is likely going to have a baby brother.
Avoid it at all costs folks. This movie was a bomb. BIG TIME.
As a fan of both werewolves and vampires, I feel embarrassed on behalf of both creatures for this disgusting film.