A victim of over-editing

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2006)

It took me a long time to see this movie, and when I did, I enjoyed it. However, much of the plot was lost in the action sequences. However, unlike many others of its genre, I felt the action scenes were not overly done. I loved the costumes, and thought they fit the dark, surreal atmosphere well. The sets were fantastic with the dark and gloominess needed for the vampire/werewolf storyline. The filming worked really well, almost keeping a feeling unreality about every shot.
But I have to admit there were a lot of things I didn't quite understand or wanted more of. While the sequel answered many of those questions, I still felt something was missing. It was. I bought the unrated director's cut...and it is *WAY* better than the original. The missing scenes do a lot to fill in holes, especially Erika's motives. It's sad though that we had to wait for a 2-disc edition to fill those holes. But "Underworld," like many other films, looks like it fell victim to over-editing, losing many valuable plot points and character motivations along the way.
If you haven't seen the director's cut or if you haven't seen "Underworld" at all, I would recommend just skipping the original version, and going right to the director's cut. It'll make a lot more sense.