Underworld: Awakening

Rating: 3/10 (10 May 2012)

Underworld Awakening opens as Humans are hunting down vampires (they are considered "the infected") in what is considered "the great purge", also eradicating lycans it seems. It is announced that lycans have been rendered extinct and few vampire covens remain in hiding. Selene and Michael are hoping to board a ship and leave but human SWAT police keep them from doing so. Selene awakens after a bomb knocks her and Michael unconscious, inside a cryogenic chamber, someone has freed her, and she soon discovers that it is her daughter, Eve (India Eisely). Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) is lead scientist in a corporation called Antigen, the leaders in trying to find a cure (or this is what they tell the public at large) and help to "cleanse the Earth" of infection. Ultimately, of course, Lane has sinister plans involving a lycans uprising and the downfall of the entire vampire race In little over 78 minutes, Underworld:Awakening is an uninspired action film loaded from start to finish with CGI violence and gore. No heart or soul to speak of and the Selene character, despite the storyline establishing her as a mother trying to protect her daughter, hasn't evolved all that much since the last two movies featuring her. Michael is only in the first minutes (I don't know why this character was practically written out of the series unless the actor had previous commitments), and mentioned here and there in the dialogue, but Awakening is essentially Selene in a war with Rea (who has a son played by Holden-Ried) who has kidnapped "subject two", daughter Eve for testing which could help discover a cure that stops silver from killing lycans. This is terribly important to Rea for reasons I will not reveal. Basically you get the same kind of attack scenes seen in previous films between werewolves and vampires, Selene right in the middle. The whole movie just goes through the motions, no depth or care given to breathe life into a tired series. I hope Beckinsale decides to hang up the tight leather suit as her character is as tired as the franchise by this point. I think the first two films were fun and had their moments, but there's nothing here I think that cries out as particularly memorable. Even the usual chase scene where lycans pursue Eve, in the back of a van driven by Selene lacks conviction. Selene finds allies in a young vampire male (basically a GQ model) and a human cop (whose wife was turned by a vampire and later killed during the purge), so there's help for her, but this, for the most part, is all about her taking out every foe that crosses her. The CGI werewolves look exactly like cartoons and the vampires (including Charles Dance) lack any real personality. You can easily skip this fourth film and not miss anything.