Bad doggie!

Rating: 3/10 (1 February 2004)

Underworld pitches dim Vampires against dopey Werewolves in a modern day Blade-like, urban (yawn) nighttime setting. I know a movie about light-shunning beasts shouldn't be particularly sunshiny, but the relentless darkness of Underworld, punctuated by cold, feeble illumination, becomes depressing, like an entire winter's blues crushed into an hour and a half.
Generally speaking, vampire movies, by their very nature, are sexy: the penetration of the neck is nothing if not symbolic. Shame Underworld has had every last vestige of red eroticism drained out from its twitching corpse. We enter into a sexless place, damp and sans pleasure.
The scenery, though limited, is gothic and elaborate: sets lit by long shadows of curved menace. Yet the script was blandly modern and functional. A vampire is told, ?you were awoken one hundred years before schedule?, or some such, as if he were being told he was early for some rainy Monday morning meeting. This vanquished any kind of spell Underworld held over me: it was as if the scri were drawn up by undead bean counters, which generally seems to be the case these days.
Kate Beckinsale is a beautiful lass, beyond the compare of most mortals. Yet here, clad in tight black leather, she seemed frigid and almost androgynous. She reminded me in many ways of Trinity ?out of? the Matrix. Trinity is a remarkably sexy woman, as one realises from watching Memento. But, in that modern way, Trinity has the sex appeal of a rat in a bin bag. Perhaps it is just me, not finding these women wrapped in black leather curiously sexless, but more likely, the fault lies with the director. Why is the audience considered by movie makers as a vacuum to be filled with violence, but not a mote of eroticism? Many modern movies, especially the specimen of a sexless vampire movie, is the modern day equivalent of the Victorians covering table legs to avoid offence. Political correctness is probably at least partially behind this malaise. Yawwwwwwwn!
So, there's no decent dialogue, sex, nudity or sexiness to be found here, what about action then? Again, we are given precious little gratification here. There are a few fights but they are not particularly sensational or invigorating. The fights felt false. Worse, because I didn't care about ANY of the characters, I didn't care who won. The characters of Underworld seem like hibernating cold blooded creatures; deathless amphibians. The werewolves were too poorly lit to be admired, but too blatant to be mysterious.
Underworld is terrifically tedious. This move is another debacle that causes one to question the recent fad with casting a female in the lead role in an action movie. The blazing Lara Croft pistols in delicate hands bullshit is really wearing thin.
Oh, and did I mention that at one point the gal says, "I've gottagettyouOuddahere!" Groan? I was reaching for the razor blades!