Kate+Skintight Black Leather=Good Fun (with the Volume Turned Down)

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2004)

Underworld
If watching Kate Beckinsale run, jump, strut, pose and fly across the screen wearing a skin-tight black leather outfit sounds like a great way to spend two hours of your time--and it does to me, I tell you what--then "Underworld" is the best film ever made. That's because Kate's leather-clad form and pale, gorgeous face is about all the entertainment value there is in this incredibly derivative Goth-kid's wet dream. "Buffy," "Matrix," "La Femme Nikita," Neil Gaiman, and Anne Rice are only a few of the sources blatently "resourced" for this over-budgeted hunk of junk.
If you don't find the vision of Ms. Beckinsale's hide-wrapped hind quarters enough to interest you for two hours, however, all you have left is incredibly bad dialogue, overripe sets left over from other, better movies, and a bunch of lank-haired wannabe rockstar pretty boys glowering and acting all testy.
Luckily, now that the movie has been released on home video, you can turn the sound down and at least not have to suffer the inane sub cartoon dialogue. In fact, "Underworld" would have worked much better as a silent film.
Fortunately (or sadly, depending on how you look at it) I find Kate's patent leather packaged butt to be plenty entertaining all on its own, however, so I have to give the flick all thumbs up!