A nausea-inducing experience

Rating: 1/10 (29 January 2012)

It pains me to give any Underworld film such a low rating (especially that I gave the last one, Rise of the Lycans (2009), a 10 out of 10) but I couldn't help feeling entirely disappointed last night as I walked out of the cinema.
Before I go into why I thought the film was such a waste of my money and time, allow me to highlight some positive aspects of the film. Kate Beckingsale's performance as Selene was superb. And beautifully choreographed fight scenes were truly spectacular. Also, it must be said that there were some good ideas in the storyline - it's just a shame that they were not adequately developed. That said, I have little else to add by way of praising it, despite my best efforts to be a generous critic of the film, given that I am a loyal fan of the Underworld films.
First of all, the 3D format. There were moments in the cinema theatre where I genuinely thought I'd be sick and would have to leave the theatre mid way through watching the film. But I was so determined to convince myself that this film would be superb, so I persevered. As I went on desperately trying to enjoy the film, I found myself thinking: 'Oh, and now it looks as if Selene's pistol is exiting the screen'; 'Here they've tried to make it look as if the Lycan is jumping out of the screen to attack me, but not entirely convincingly'; 'Oh look! A shard of exploding glass flying out of the screen right at me!' All of this 3D stuff did little to "add" to my cinema experience; in fact, it "detracted" much from it. My audio visual senses were so overwhelmed that I struggled not to be sick and to try hard to focus on what's going on in the film. Additionally, the 3D seemed to actually be quite distracting when one's trying to figure out what's going on in the fight scenes, but just keeps getting distracted by debris flying out of the screen and losing focus. So now the mind has to work double hard to get a grip and regain visual focus - 'Where was I, again?' I kept trying hard to pull myself back into the film. So much for "adding to my film-watching experience"! It in fact left me mentally drained, nauseous, confused, my senses overwhelmed, and - most importantly - it seemed a very poor excuse for a bad/bland story line, which brings me to my next point.
I don't want to add spoilers so I'll refrain from going into detail, but suffice to say that I can write the whole story of Underworld Awakening on the back of a cigarette packet without much loss to content. This is due to the fact that not much happens in the story, really - plenty of action, and mind-bending, nausea-inducing 3D, yes; but don't expect much else. The story line in Underworld Awakening - contrary to the sophisticated one in Rise of the Lycans - is truly yawn-inspiring. Every story has a beginning, middle and end. The story in this film finished somewhere around the middle by the time the credits rolled. Needless to say, it was such an anti-climax.
And now, onto the characters. Not only is Selene the only character from the other Underworld films and the rest all new (if done tastefully, this needn't be anything negative in and of itself) but the sidekick characters we so flat and two dimensional that it left me wondering why the film-makers hadn't spent half the time and energy writing rich, 3D characters than focusing on 3D visual effects. Not only were the characters - other than Selene's - so flat and rigid that they failed to draw you in, but some of the acting was truly awful. There were also times where their lines were so obviously bad that I had to feel bad for the actors playing these roles. At other times however, I kept wondering why an actor had a frozen expression with no emotions on display when the lines demanded the opposite - the actors and their lines didn't seem to be in sync for much of the film, making their performances poor and the script utterly amateurish. Again, the characters, lines and acting in Underworld Awakening stand in the very opposite (bad) end of the quality spectrum when compared with the well performed and well-written characters of Rise of the Lycan.
All I can say is that I lament the time and money I spent going to the cinema watching Underworld Awakening 3D. Not only has it put me off watching any 3D film, but it left me angry thinking how could a superb film such as Rise of the Lycans be followed by this!