Beckinsale's back...

Rating: 6/10 (9 May 2014)

The previous UNDERWORLD movie (RISE OF THE LYCANS) was a prequel film which substituted lead star Kate Beckinsale for her low-budget lookalike Rhona Mitra, but it's business as usual for this, the fourth in the series and a 'proper' sequel to the second film, UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION. It's set sometime in the future, where a thawed-out Beckinsale finds herself in the midst of a new war between vampires, humans and werewolves.
UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING dispenses with any kind of plausible storyline from the outset, instead focusing on non-stop and relentless action at all times. It's a film that's filled to the brim with gory incident and violent death, as Beckinsale and her cronies go up against an army of bloodthirsty werewolves, led by a huge mutant creature in some of the most fun monster movie set-pieces I've seen in a good while. Yes, the entire film is completely dominated by CGI, but it does work for the most part.
This isn't a 'good' film in the accepted sense of the word, of course. Beckinsale seems to get lazier and lazier as each movie goes by, and the supporting cast aren't much better. The only recognisable actors in the cast are an aged and tired Stephen Rea and the inimitable Charles Dance, who shows up, acts everyone else's socks off, and then disappears again. Never mind: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING is fun, noisy, fast-paced and extraordinarily gruesome. It delivers what it sets out to deliver, and you can't ask for much more than that.