A lot of action, no story

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2012)

¨For 12 years, I was held captive by the humans. The world I once knew has changed. Vampires and Lycans are now the hunted.¨ This is the fourth film in the Underworld franchise and this time Kate Beckinsale is back in the lead role after Rhona Mitra starred in the third one alongside Michael Sheen (which served as a prequel to the original film). If you've seen the other films then you probably know what to expect here because it is kind of the same thing: a lot of action and very little dialogue with voice over narration from Selene who lets us know everything that is happening. The first film of the franchise felt fresh and original, but these sequels have to stop because they seem to be repeating themselves with each movie. This time Awakening was directed by the Swedish duo Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein who have directed other Swedish films together in the past. There were about four screenwriters involved with the script and I really don't see why because there is hardly no story in this film, it focuses almost entirely on the action and there is really very little character development. Fans who are expecting to see a lot of action and eye candy will be satisfied with Kate's performance, but if you were looking for some more depth and more interesting characters then you will be disappointed with this fourth installment. The action is almost nonstop and the film is under 90 minutes long so time does go by pretty fast. If you are satisfied with good visuals then you might enjoy this film, but don't go into it expecting much more.
This fourth installment follows the similar premise where you have the lycans facing off against the vampires, except only this time both sides are being hunted by humans who are trying to exterminate them. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) narrates what is happening while she plans to meet up with Michael and escape with him, but they are ambushed by humans and a grenade goes off. Everything blacks out and we see Selene frozen inside a lab when someone seems to be freeing her. Selene wakes up and realizes she is in the Antigen laboratory run by Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) and manages to escape from all the security. Once free she tries to figure out what happened before the explosion went off and realizes that 12 years have gone by while she was kept frozen in the lab. She begins to look for Micheal, believing he was the one that freed her since she seems to be seeing his visions. While she is on the run some humans are after her, and so are some lycans. She runs into another vampire named David (Theo James) who helps her search for Micheal. Soon they realize that those visions Selene is having aren't from Micheal, but from someone else who is connected to her.
The entire movie moves at a really fast pace focusing mostly on the action and visual effects. Kate Beckinsale knows her part by memory and can do those tricks with her eyes closed. She is quite impressive on screen and really kicks some lycan butt. The rest of the cast really don't add anything new to the movie since there is barely any character development. What we have instead are 88 minutes of nonstop action. Other supporting actors in this film are Michael Ealy, India Eisley, Charles Dance, and Kris Holden-Ried. None of them really shine on screen, but they don't have to because Underworld Awakening is all about the action and seeing Beckinsale kill off as many lycans as possible. She does her job and if the viewer is satisfied with that then they will have a great time with this film, if not I would recommend you skip this movie because it has no other value than the well choreographed fighting scenes.
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