Simply a fan

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2012)

I have thoroughly enjoyed this series for what it is, a tongue in cheek alternative view of the advancement of vampires and werewolves into modern times. A genre which is at present being portrayed televisually via True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Being Human et al. I have no preconceptions about this film, only enjoyable memories of it's predecessors, they have always been, rather like the X-Men, eye-candy, the sort of film which, though you own it on DVD, you will lie back in your chair and watch on TV despite advertising breaks. I am hoping to see this film this week and will be happy to give my opinion on it. I just hope that it is appreciated that I am already a lover of the series for reasons as detailed above and that it should be taken into consideration that I find Kate Beckinsale incredibly hot.
Smoking hot.
I took my girlfriend along with me last night to get her rection, she's not a big action film lover though she has seen the previous three films on DVD and enjoyed them. She is useful for the jump factor and on at three occasions she jumped in her seat (not bad for a 77 minute film) and her final view was 'A bit gory'.
A bit gory is right but as it is CGI gore one soon becomes immune to it, It's only a film after all, the CGI is rather good though the 3-D was kept to a minimum and used mainly in explosions and gas effects, the occasional 'character in front of background' shots were rather bad, looking more like pop-ups than scenes, the boom-bang effect was quite satisfying and the weaponry was nothing that would make an old soldiers' eyebrows raise in disbelief, something that often spoils a film for me.
Kate carries her role off with her usual tight-lipped seriousness, her dialogue is kept to a comic book minimum and as the story is mainly a long search very few pointers are required to keep the story line rolling along from one fight to the next and just as a comic-book would end openly so does the 4th Underworld with a possible 3 or 4 lines for a sequel to follow.
Charles Dance is the English actor whose turn it is to be the 'baddie' and though he doesn't feature greatly other than to offer an alternative view of the future of vampires in the modern world one gets the feeling that there have been cuts made to his part of the storyline and a slight feeling of dissatisfaction is felt that his character wasn't exploited to the full. More a Greek chorus than a central character.
As I don't want to give anything away and dislike using the spoilers alert I can only finish with a thumbs-up. Where a lot of series would be losing momentum by the fourth edition, Underworld seems to have hung onto it's ability to keep an audience interested, apart from the huddle of cackling and possibly tipsy women in the front row everybody else seemed glued to the screen and there was no complaining among the crowd as we left the cinema.
Definitely a film to get the popcorn for.