Pretty but dumb

Rating: Null/10 (26 August 2005)

During a long-standing war between vampires and werewolves, a vampire warrior (Beckinsale) becomes involved with a human who the werewolves are targeting. Beautiful to look at, all shiny and self-consciously Gothic like a Maxim spread. And in an abstract sense rather well directed, particularly in the action sequences, which are a nice absorption of Hong Kong influences. Unfortunately, though, the movie lacks an ounce of imagination or intelligence. For all of the money spent on it there's not that much by way of werewolf action or vampire action, really, for instance  there's something really disappointing about watching monsters fighting with guns. The plot is simplistic and predictable (one of the bad guys is named "Craven" and he's, um, cowardly), the rationale behind what the monsters can do is fuzzily presented, at best (sometimes vampires just drain blood, sometimes they can turn people  but they can't seem to turn werewolves  although they can turn our superman), and on and on and on. A real pity, as there's some real talent at work here, but UNDERWORLD strikes one as all technique, no substance. You can't just watch Hong Kong Action movies and horror thrillers and think you can derive a story on that alone.