I really enjoyed this film (possible spoilers)

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2003)

This film was not what I expected. I truly expected a knock down drag out end-to-end attempt by vampires and werewolves to annihilate each other with big explosions, unbelievable fight scenes and over the top special effects. Is that what everyone does these days?
Instead, there actually was a decent surprisingly unpredictable story with good sub plots and a very gothic ambiance. I think all of them might have been a little bit under developed, or maybe they were lopped off to bring the length of the movie down; I guess we will have to wait for a director's cut to find out.
The story does have some surprising plot twists, which you may or may not be able, to figure out until they actually happen- thankfully, in my opinion, they were not telegraphed. Another notable element is that vampires in this story don't turn into bats, fog or rats, they're just people afflicted with a virus as are the werewolves. Which is one of the different strains (no pun intended) of the supernatural/horror genre that's from a more scientific than mystical influence.
The technical special effects, thankfully, were not ridiculously overdone and made in such a way to blend very well into the film. It seemed like a lot of detail went into doing the effects that were used, rather sparingly, which I felt lent more credible to the movie as a story than a wide screen goth-horror-action explosion.
I think the characters were intriguing, although knowing a little more about them might have been interesting, especially Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) - we know in the end what his ties to both the vampires and the werewolves is, but we really don't know much about him other than that he was a resident at a hospital. For Selene (Kate Beckingsdale) you don't need to know much because basically she's been doing what she's been doing for several hundred years and her character is basically unchanged - she's a warrior and a survivor who follows her instincts for better or worse.
It would have been more interesting to find out how the deal that spared Kraven's (Shane Brolly) life actually occurred as that is on of the major catalysts to how the story unfolds. The only other thing I would have really like to have found out about, was the hierarchical structure of the vampire world because it appeared very complex and sophisticated. Whereas, it appears that the werewolves have little to no structure at all and that which they have is all through the mechanizations of Lucian (Michael Sheen).
But if I say more, I may give too much away, if I haven't already. I think this movie is worth seeing. The sets are good, the weapon's tech is very cool and all in all it's a movie that has a slightly different beat than most of what we've seen this year.