Was a new twist on the paranormal...

Rating: 9/10 (20 September 2003)

First the down side to the movie....the overused Matrix special effects, but that always happens when new effects are introduced. All action movies lately seem to be taking a spin from it.
The movie itself was excellently made. The story line was tight and the characters believable in a paranormal world. Too many people have compared this to the Blade series. This is unlike the Blade series in many ways. Can Blade take Selene? Well can Sylvester Stallone 'take' Bruce Willis? Who knows and who cares. These are characters in movies who have their own place, strengths, weaknesses, etc. in their own worlds. This movie was not about the violence and action itself but about the struggle for survival between two rival paranormal species. The Blade series was about an evolved vampire eradicating the world of vampires and the like.
The existence and battle of the vampires and the lycanthropes is quite similar to the Laurel Hamilton "Anita Blake" series of books or even the survival aspect of the Christine Feehan "Dark" series about the Carpathians. I saw this movie about the survival of two species who became caught in a blood feud which neither side seems to have the full history on.
I thought the plot twists at the end were very well done. This was not only an action movie but a story. It held up both the action and the fantasy aspect of its classification very well.
I would like to have seen more character development on the lycanthrope side. I think the vampire side was heavily presented but the werewolves only seemed to focus on Lucian and Michael, who for all intents and purposes was not really a full lycan.
All in all I thought this movie was very well done and lived up to its previews. I'd like to see more movies along this line by these same creators. Not necessarily saying a sequel would be in order but the story can be even more fleshed out as time progresses.