Underworld

Rating: 8/10 (30 July 2014)

Title: Underworld
Condensed Storyline: A war between vampires and lycans has been raging for thousands of years. A deathdealing vampire is trying to find out what the lycans want with a human.
Notable Acting: This is one of those films where I feel like they hit the nail on the head with every casting call, having Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman as your lead roles gets your attention and keeps it throughout the movie. The secondary characters such as Michael Sheen and Shane Brolly are great actors as well. Everyone played their part greatly
Noticeable Camera work: Classic and simple action movie range of shots, focusing more on the framing of the shot than the angle or camera work of it.
Graphics: Be it the CGI that is used to show what happens to a vampire once they are shot with a UV round or what happens internally once a lycan changes, the CGI is of a really high quality in this movie. The CGI for the lycans when they have changed is one of the best that I have seen in a long while, there will not be another good movie involving good CGI werewolves until some time past 2014, as the other good movie with CGI werewolves was a year before this movie.
Incorrect Science: Silver nitrate doesn't look like a silver liquid, it is generally a clear liquid. The bullets in this movie wouldn't have anywhere to store the gunpowder as the clear casings for the UV and liquid silver nitrate show only the liquid and not enough of the shell for gun power to be stored. If the weapons were using compressed air, that would make this acceptable, but seeing as they are not. They say Viktor is the oldest and strongest of the vampires, but it is then later established that he was turned by Marcus who was the first vampire and is still living, this contradicts itself.
Overall Feel: This is franchise has answered the question fantasy and mythology nerds have been asking for years. "Who would win in a fight? A vampire or a werewolf?" This movie and franchise has basically been answering that question since 2003. In 1998 we had blade and other similar movies which had a man fighting vampires, but this movie went a step further. The movie strikes the dark Gothic tone that a movie like this needs and the level of gore is at a good level with there not being too much gore that you become desensitized by it and not too little that you are left disappointed.