The cinematic equivalent of ruining a Cup O' Noodles

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2004)

Think about it. All you need to do with a Cup O' Noodles is add hot water up to the cutoff line, stir it and let it sit there for like two or three minutes. That's how simple it is. Sadly, Underworld is a Cup O' Noodles that was prepared really wrong.
Underworld, if handled by the proper people, could've been a great Cup O' Noodles. I mean, for the love of Mike, they had everything they needed to make this. A war between vampires and werewolves raging in the streets, just under view of the public eye. Listen to the way that sounds. Now if you're like me, that's enough to make you drool with the possibilities. Okay, maybe not drool but you have to admit that it's an idea that just sounds good. The first I heard of this movie got me excited and the trailer looked promising enough.
So why is it that while I'm watching this movie, I feel like doing bodily harm to someone? Why, I'll tell you! This movie bites, pun fully intended. This movie is really, really bad. There were moments in the film where I did my best Dwayne Wayne impression with a big, "Huh?", unintentionally. The story makes little sense and seems to be more interested in subjecting the viewer to "highbrow" dialogue, that is actually a lot less intellectual than it sounds, than what said viewer most likely wants to be subjected to: satisfying action. But I'll save that little detail for last, the whole problem with the action in the movie. I have other bones to pick first. The acting sucks unfortunately. I was able to stomach Kate Beckinsale but I think that was mainly due to her looking damn tasty in those leather outfits. Not to say her acting was bad which didn't but she was sadly and criminally wasted in this movie and it makes it even worse to think that they could not pull off such a great premise with this girl in the lead, who was pretty much pitch perfect. Everybody else in the movie delivers blandly, especially the jerk who plays Craven. Boy, was he horrible. I wanted to slap him with a wet sock the moment he delivered his first line. Why he was cast is a question that only the director will probably ever know. Unless he was a nephew of one of the gaffers or something. Then maybe you could ask the gaffer if you ever get to speak to him. Special effects? Terrible. It was hard not to laugh when I saw the first werewolf transformation in the movie. I managed to hold it in, at least, until the second transformation happened. The werewolf transformations look absolutely horrendous. It almost looked like they took some Pop Rocks and fed it to someone's German Shepherd, slowing the film down so you could catch every little flesh shuddering crackle and pop. Think about this: An American Werewolf in London came out back in 1981 and the werewolf transformations in Underworld come nowhere near the quality of Werewolf in London. This in 2003, when effects are supposedly at an all time high. How sad is that? Very, if you ask me. The movie looks great which is really just another sad casualty in this film. There's something about a movie with wasted cinematography that just drives a stake through my heart.
And this my friends, is where I tell you what the biggest problem with this movie is. Originality. I read a review of this film upon its release that summed it up perfectly. I don't remember the exact quote but it touched upon the fact that there is almost nothing in this movie that you haven't seen before or done better. I couldn't put it any better. The action scenes are just bland and it's obvious that somebody watched and tried to rip off Blade prior to filming this movie. Speaking of Blade, that particular film was ransacked for ideas for this movie. If you know your Blade movies, you will feel a sense of deja vu watching this. This film is reason enough to question the validity of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. There are moments in this film that are blatantly ripped off from some pretty recent movies. To give you a perfect example, there is a transition in the film where the camera goes into what is on a computer monitor. Not only does this scene rip off a very similar transition in the first Matrix movie but they even had the gall to use the same weird trademark sound effects that were used in the Matrix in that same scene. Shameless.
They had the premise, they had the look, they had the heroine and they just had to blow it. I don't understand how they could have fudged it. How hard could it have been to pull something great out of the idea that they had? My guess is that somebody didn't read the recipe on their Cup O' Noodles container. A sad experience which I have no desire to relive.

RATING: *1/2 out of *****.