Shows its audience a reasonably good time.

Rating: 6/10 (7 October 2017)

Out of the blue, a hunky average-Joe hospital intern named Michael (Scott Speedman) is targeted by beings who turn out to be "Lycans", or werewolves. It turns out that there's been a war waging between Vampires and Lycans for centuries, and Michael's caught up in it because the Lycans have taken a keen interest in him. The Vampire who begins protecting Michael on a regular basis is the tough-as-nails Selene (a black leather clad, super sexy Kate Beckinsale). She also must deal with the traitorous Kraven (Shane Brolly) and Lycan head honcho Lucian (Michael Sheen).
Admittedly, some of the gadgets here are cool. Each side has devised special bullets guaranteed to mess up opponents badly. Director Len Wiseman serves up a lot of fast and furious action, and the kind of rapid cutting common to so many modern films of this kind. Beckinsale looks exquisite while kicking ass, and Speedman is sure to get plenty of hearts fluttering himself. All of that said, it's hard to care very much about the characters for quite a while, until Wiseman starts giving the actors more dramatic moments. Even then, the film looks and feels drab, with characters struggling to keep their emotions in check. The heavy reliance on digital technology, unfortunately, turns too many of the effects into cartoons. (Not that this is surprising; "Underworld" was obviously done to have a comic book sort of approach.) The werewolves, in particular, look pretty bad. This is dark, rainy stuff with atmosphere to spare (this was filmed in Hungary), slick to a fault, but never very involving. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the "things are not as they seem" plot twist, although some viewers may charge that they saw it coming well ahead of time.
Beckinsale and Speedman are nicely supported by a talented bunch of actors. Sheen is charismatic, Bill Nighy has excellent screen presence as head Vampire Viktor, and Sophia Myles has plenty of sex appeal herself in the role of Erika. Brolly isn't so hot, however; his reaction to hearing some "shocking" news is priceless.
Screenplay by actor Danny McBride, with story credit going to McBride, fellow actor Kevin Grevioux (both of them also have roles in the film), and director Wiseman.
Followed by three more "Underworld" features.
Six out of 10.