From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Underworld released in 2003.
Starring:
Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Shane Brolly
Directed by:
Len Wiseman
Genre:
Action, Fantasy, Thriller
Rating:
R
Budget:
$22,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb Rating: is currently
7.0
My Rating:
9
The Synopsis is:
In the Underworld, there is a 6,000 year old war between vampires and werewolves. A werewolf assassin vampire, by the name of Selene, uncovers a master plan that involves a human by the name of Michael whose bloodline could possibly end the war.
Enjoyment:
I love vampires and werewolves so this movie kinda has an elevated enjoyment out of me by default.
There’s a lot problems in the film which keeps it from being my absolute favorite, but it’s still extremely enjoyable to me. I really liked it a lot!
Pacing:
The pacing is where I had the most issue with the film. At 2 hours and on minute, it is too slow with lots of recycled scenes. It’s almost as if they didn’t trust the audience to get it. Yeah we got it. Let’s move on.
*THE REST OF THE REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. *
Story:
The story begins with a lot of exposition and it keeps going on and on. I loved it because at times the story is so tragically beautiful. The movie was initially pitched as "Romeo and Juliet for vampires and werewolves". Which is what it is. A tragic love story.
White Wolf, Inc. and author Nancy A. Collins filed suit against Sony Pictures, Screen Gems, and Lakeshore Entertainment for copyright infringement. I’ve actually read some of her books, in particular, In the Blood and Wild Blood which have many similarities to this story. In both books she explores secret societies of vampires and werewolves within our culture. The suit was settled out of court, for an undisclosed amount.
It’s not an entirely rare idea because fights between vampires and werewolves are in movies like The Werewolf vs Vampire women released in 1972, the battle between the werewolf and Dracula on steroids presented in Van Helsing released in 2004, and then famously in the werewolf and vampire fight for Bella in Twilight released in 2008.
Classically, werewolves were kindred to the vampire and a part of the children of the night and in fact many vampires can change into werewolves as represented in Dracula released in 1978, Bram Stoker's Dracula released in 1992 and the incredible transformation of Evil Ed in Fright Night in 1985.
This films borrows many scenes from other films:
When Selene is cornered by Lycans and fires her guns through the floor in order to escape. This was seen in the film "Nemesis." released in 1992
In the film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)
Police are actually werewolves
Alien (1979)
Shot of hanging chains with water dripping from above
At the start of the movie when Selene encounters a werewolf in the train tunnel, you hear a wolf howl - the sound effect is taken directly from American Werewolf in London, An (1981).
Lucian stabs through the roof of a car with a long blade as the T-1000 did in the elevator scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Selene even gets cut in the shoulder like Sarah Connor. In fact that whole scene is a combination of the elevator scene and the scene in which the T-1000 chases the car. The only thing that is missing is that epic Terminator music.
Kindred: The Embraced (1996) (TV Series)
Older, ruling vampires that can 'hibernate' until awakened with the blood of a powerful vampire to rule once more.
Blade (1998)
Blood is irrigated to drip to a specific point to awaken a superior vampire.
And the story throws in a little foreshadowing. Selene stares at victor's tomb near the beginning of the film, foreshadowing that she will eventually summon him back to life.
Challenge:
The challenge is murky because there are so many villains presented in this film, but also some revealed not to be evil at all.
It all begins with a war between the vampires and werewolves, often referred to as lycans.
The vampires in this film are the aristocrats, elitists with the sole intention of exterminating lycans. The lycans are the lower class and the former slaves of the vampires who live beneath ground. They are just defending themselves as they are actively being hunted in this film and trying to figure out how stop the war.
So this is not just a war, between enemies. This is a war between classes, rich and poor.
At first, the lycans seem to be the bad guys as we see them being pit against our protagonist, Selene. They seem to be many times stronger than the vampires, and now armed with UV bullets and a very dangerous plan to destroy the vampires.
But actually they are only puppets in a plan. There’s a vampire by the name of Kraven who has manipulated his way to the top through lies and plans on using the lycans so he can become head of all vampires.
He has the makings of a great villain seeking after power. But then it turns sour when the subplot is that he desires Selene as his bride. And there is where he appears to be quite vapid.
They have no chemistry to be found and he shows no interest in supporting anything she presents as a concern. There are scenes, upon scenes of him just looking at her and silence.
To be brutally honest, it’s a story plot that has no gravity and so he fails as an impressive villain and only hits one note.
Viktor however, is the villain's villain in this film. Viktor is one of the elder vampires kept in hibernation in the coven’s tomb. Selene breaks the rules of the vampire coven and awakens him a full century earlier than he’s supposed to because she fears that some treachery is a work and only he can set things right.
Right off the bat we know that Viktor is thoroughly pissed off about that. Now Selene is right and Viktor is probably in her debt for waking him, but what she has done must be punished and instead of being there when he awakes, she leaves the coven to help a lycan.
It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, even though she does what she does to save the vampire from an unexpected annihilation.
Viktor is a great villain because he believes he his doing something noble. His motives are crystal clear. From his point of view, vampires and lycans should be separated and most definitely not meant to breed together.
He calls hybrids of the two an abomination. He is self-righteously doing all of this to preserve the purity of the vampire species even at the cost of his own children.
Viktor and Selene share a history together because he is her adopted child. He loves Selene in his own strange way. You can see his tenderness for her. But in the same breath, he is ready to condemn her.
He wants to make an example of her publicly to display his dedication to the vampire coven.
To him, the responsibility of leading, protecting, and nurturing the coven is more important than his own personal needs.
In his mind, he is a hero for the vampire collective. And that makes him a fantastic villian.
Empathy:
I have a lot of empathy for the protagonist in the story, Selene.
Selene, According to writer/actor Kevin Grevioux, was modeled after the psychic vampire of the Hellfire Club in the X-Men comics, the Black Queen Selene. And also, in Greek mythology, 'Selene', is the Moon and a Seleneophile is a name for someone who loves the moon. As you can see Selene often positioned with the moon in the posters for this film.
The story is set up through her point of view.
Selene is a death dealer, a hunter of lycans. She is personally invested in her job, because she believes that lycans killed her family. She’s being manipulated, but her instinct to protect Michael, who is an innocent, leads her to learn the truth about the vampires.
In this film, it’s unfortunate, but Selene is the only vampire that you ever like. The rest are just horrible, morally corrupt and shallow. This is the first time, in a movie that I don’t like the vampires. It wounds me to say that because I do usually love them so.
Selene is a dynamic action character, flipping, jumping but mostly shooting her way out of any situation with her double handed firing stance.
She’s incredible to watch and with every battle, even though she is on the wrong team, I just felt as if I was getting more and more invested in her outcome.
Selene’s pet project is Michael Covin, who is unknowingly an ancestor of the first lycan.
The name Corvin, has a connection to the real world as it is a reference to Mathius Corvinus of Moldavia who was an ally of Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Michael is just a human caught up in this war, selected to be the champion to destroy the elder vampires. He is likable, but he's a passive character for most of the film. The only reason I like him is because Selene likes him.
By the end of the film, he proves his worth in the story as a great contender for Viktor to battle.
And in the middle of all of this there is a love story brewing between Michael and Selene.
Now we come to my favorite lycan, Lucian. He is presented as a very dangerous villain, but in truth, he is actually a guy forced to fight, for his species as his kind is being hunted... and exterminated.
The film takes time to develop Lucian’s character as he is the father figure to the other lycans, teaching them honor instead of giving into their wild instincts.
It is through his leadership that the lycans make some head way creating deadly UV bullets to battle the vampires.
As well Lucian has more to fight for as he was once in love with Sonja, Victor’s daughter many years ago. She was pregnant with their child when Victor sentenced her to death for her betrayal of the coven.
He fights for the honor of his lost love. And that is the tragic Romeo and Juliet tale we get in the story.
Technical:
There were so many cool effects in this movie. It just amazes me that they were able to accomplish this with only 22 million dollars.
I also really liked the look of the lycans and was surprised that at a time that CGI was so heavily used, they opted not to use it as often as I thought they would have.
They opted to shoot many of the action and effects sequences live, without computer imagery.
The practical effects were amazing along with the modern looking creature design of the wolves. I thought they looked really great.
There were some full bodied CGI lycans scattered in the film, but luckily they don’t last long on screen.
I was also impressed by Viktor’s makeup during his revival into his normal skin. The detail was immense and masterfully used Bill Nighy’s extremely thin frame to the film’s advantage to tell the story of a frail vampire on the brink of life being slowly restored. It looked great.
The costumes were incredible. Besides the black leather popular in fashion at the time, the other ornamental pieces, jewelry and coats were extravagantly decorated with old Celtic inspired art. I absolutely loved all of them, feeling somehow that they had captured the details of a glorious and ancient mythology.
I especially liked the tomb design and set pieces. It had minimal design, using the floor medallions as locks for the unique hibernation chambers or coffins for the elders. Again they utilized the Celtic style to ornament the metal.
The action scenes in this film were quite impressive again utilizing the blending of CGI and practical effects very nicely.
Many people commented on how much it reminded them of the Matrix released in 1999. And I agree, but the Matrix used the trend of it’s time and many movies were using this darker more grungier look at the world while using an exaggerated sense of leather fashions that were popular at the time.
This is all perfect for the underworld look, being set at night and having a night club blueish tinge to everything really created the Gothic energy for the film.
Many of the shots were done in interesting angles and had a very gritty texture and a surrealistic look to them which makes this film really stand out among so many other action films of its day.
There were a few impressive transitions in the film creating a graceful flow.
The music had very haunting tones, mixed with highly cinematic booms and a few screeching metal sounds for effect almost as if it were part of the foley. I really enjoyed it a lot.
Performances:
I enjoyed all of the performances, even in the smaller roles. I think the most striking performances came from Michael Sheen, and Bill Nighy. They were over the top sometimes, but this is the kind of story for such a thing.
Viktor and Lucian aren’t normal people, they are mythological creatures that have been alive for a long long time.
Many people thought that Kevin Grevioux's voice in the film for his character, Raze's, was a special effect, but that is his natural speaking voice. Even his profile looks like a wolf naturally. Besides being one of the writers he was perfectly cast in the film.
Best:
I enjoyed the lycan transformations… and I absolutely loved Michael’s transformation. It was really detailed and the perfect blend of CGI and practical effects on screen.
Any scene with Lucian in it. Wow. His regeneration scene ejecting bullets out of his body was pretty intense and still holds up.
I also enjoyed their creature designs. Some people complained that the lycans were hairless and that was something that I enjoyed about them, that they looked different than the expected werewolf design. And actually calling them lycans really pressed home that they would be different.
Wish List:
I wish the pacing was a little more concise and snippier.
I wish there was more of Lucian in the film. He is just amazing to watch and to me it was big mistake to kill him off in the film. What a dynamic character.
I wish the vampires weren’t so easily killed by the werewolves and really gave them a good fight. Especially the elder, Amelia. It would have been cool to see her fight as Viktor... and in later movies Marcus does. As an elder, she is just a plot device.
I wish Kraven was a smarter villain. He was too transparent and boring.
For instance, there is a scene in which he hits Selene, and I swear that I could see that coming a mile away. I wanted to reach into the screen and block it myself.
I think, if he was more of a sly fox, pretending to be on Selene’s side, all the while throwing her off course, his character would really juicy.
The Ending:
I really liked the ending.
So the building story leads Lucian to bite Michael and then circumstances lead Selene to have to bite Michael and that turns him into a super mythical creature the lycaire or the vampycan. Who knows? But he’s amazing.
He faces off with Viktor and it’s one fabulous showdown. I love a good old fashion boss battle at the end of an action movie like this one.
I also really liked where the story left off, with many, many questions and a nice string of bait for a possible sequel. And what a sequel it was...
Summary:
There were a lot of flaws for me in this film, but I really enjoyed the deep lore of the vampires and lycans that it provided.
The film leaves plenty of story possibilities in it’s wake and there have been many sequels that followed it.
And one such sequel that is one of my favorite movies is the Rise of the Lycans, where we get to learn all about Lucian’s exciting story of what happened to him and his vampire bride and also how the werewolves freed themselves from the vampires.
As a big fan of both werewolves and vampires this film is pretty awesome!
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off.
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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