Much to enjoy and I look forward to a sequel

Rating: 10/10 (29 September 2003)

Up front I should say that I really enjoyed this film. It had many flaws, some cinematographic, some heresies (if that can be the right word in the circumstances) visited on the traditional `lore' of vampires and werewolves and some very dodgy physics to boot (bullets filled with liquid light - hmm???), but I think it's worth remembering what movies are meant to be about, i.e. entertainment. This was very entertaining. Sometimes I when I go to the cinema I want thought-provoking, sometimes moving, sometimes intellectual stimulation, but sometimes also just fun. It's rare to get a single movie which combines all of these and I guess scoring well in three out of four categories tends to lead to a classic. Underworld was undeniably light on the first three, but made up for this by being heavy on the fourth. Yes, it was a bit silly sometimes, no it won't make my all-time movie top 20, but it was worth seeing and I'd watch it again.
Criticism here (and elsewhere) seems to be focussed on the following: -
1. The acting was wooden
2. The plot was incomprehensible
3. It was just a rip off of The Matrix / Blade / Insert random vampire movie here
4. There was no regular vampire stuff - turning into bats, lack of reflection, crucifixes, wooden stakes etc.
5. It was not very scary for a horror movie
6. There was no sexual chemistry between the leads
Here's my take on these: -
1. The acting was wooden
Maybe it's just me, but when was the last time that that an action movie had oscar-winning acting as its main prerequisite? Write down a list of the great action films and a second list of the great actors - how many of the second appeared in the first (yes I know there will be some cross-over, but hopefully you get my point)? Personally, while the acting was not sensational, I didn't feel that it detracted too much from the overall experience. As for trashing the actors, I think that maybe the script was more to blame. It's difficult to make a silk purse out of a sows ear (I exaggerate somewhat here), but I thought that Ms Beckinsale did her best. I found her character credible and even moderately complex at times. Perhaps this sounds like a get out, but maybe vampires express emotion in different ways to humans. I found the slow development of these emotion in Selene interesting. Speedman was rather wooden, but then his character was meant to be rather carried along in the torrent around him and maybe a degree of stupefaction on his behalf was consistent with this (OK I'm probably being too kind). Brolly, Sheen and Nighy acted solidly enough for my tastes, allowing for the perhaps unavoidable hamming associated with the genre.
2. The plot was incomprehensible
I have seen three professional critics say this - I can only assume that they must have been distracted by something during the film. I thought that everything hung together pretty well - loose ends were generally cleared up in the next scene, or the scene after. Not sure what was so difficult to follow.
3. It was just a rip off of The Matrix / Blade / Insert random vampire movie here
Well it was about vampires and the protagonists did wear rather a lot of black leather and / or PVC, much of which was skin-tight. Aside from this, I don't think it was any more derivative than any of the films it was meant to be plagiarising. Because a film has some elements of some other work doesn't mean that it has no creative merit of its own. Humans have been around rather a long time and it would be pretty difficult to pick any wholly innovative film (or book, or painting) - I suspect in fact that such a thing has never existed. Seeing a woman in skin-tight black shiny garb and assuming that they must be Carrie-Anne Moss seems rather superficial to say the least. I thought that Underworld was a lot more interesting and innovative that The Matrix Reloaded if it comes to that.
4. There was no regular vampire stuff - turning into bats, lack of reflection, crucifixes, wooden stakes etc.
So it was a new take on the myth - keeping and accentuating bits and dropping others. Seems like a fresh approach to me. Not sure that vampires are some immutable part of our culture that are off-limits to all reinterpretation. To me, these modern vampires and werewolves were actually rather interesting - more superhuman than suprahuman, more like us than say Christopher Lee in a cloak and tuxedo. Perhaps the director didn't have the budget to suppress reflections, or didn't realise that vampires aren't meant to appear in mirrors. More likely he didn't think that this device would add very much or further the plot - I tend to agree with him. I think the mirror stuff comes from an age where mirrors themselves were see as either rather high-tech or even magical - maybe the lack of reflections in them characterises the humans of the time rather than those around today.
5. It was not very scary for a horror movie
No it wasn't, but then I don't think it was meant to be a horror movie. Think of it as Aliens rather than Alien. The earlier film was a work of suspense and a great film (IMO). The sequel was more of a shoot-em-up with less of the interesting ideas of the first film and less of the suspense - it was a good film rather than a great one. In short Alien was (at least in part) a horror film, Aliens was an action film and so is Underworld.

6. There was no sexual chemistry between the leads
Maybe not - but I'm not sure that this was the main point. Rather I think the issue was more to do with Selene's dawning realisation that the world (and it's inhabitants) were not as she had always assumed them to be. Michael was only part of this - maybe even just a metaphor for it. Anyway I thought that there was enough sexual chemistry between Selene and the camera to make up for what might have been missing between Beckinsale and Speedman.
Finally - judged as an action film, I thought Underworld it did an good job. It looked great (as did Ms Beckinsale), it hung together and the director didn't lift his foot from the pedal for very long at any point. The SFXs were good without being ends in themselves or distracting from the narrative. I enjoyed the mix of old and new with the vampires and werewolves and found Selene's torn loyalties and heightened emotional state central rather than a distraction. I thought that Selene herself was a credible, interesting, rather different and reasonably well-acted (script-allowing) creation, whom I hope to see more of in the rather telegraphed sequel.