Style over substance

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2004)

This movie is all dressed up with no place to go, with sexy vampires and rugged-looking werewolves, but no soul at all.
The main point of the story, as I understand it, is that Vampire Selene falls in love with Werewolf Michael; she is so much in love with him, in fact, that she turns on her own kind in favor of him. I've watched this movie about 5 times now (I have the DVD; just the regular one, not the "extended" one), and I still don't get the feeling that their connection is really that strong. So he saves her from a car wreck; so what? Vampires, especially "Death-Dealers" like Selene, have been brought up to despise werewolves and disdain humans.
The werewolves and their lives also bother me; why is this pack (apparently) 100% male? Why don't we see any females in their group? Are all werewolves made, not born? It's one of those nagging inconsistencies that really irritates me.
The movie has great production values, good tunes and nifty special effects, especially the werewolf transformations. The regular DVD has more than enough special features to satisfy most movie buffs, and the extended version is chock-full of even more goodies. Alas, this slickly produced action/romance/horror flick ultimately rings hollow. My rating: 6/10.