Fetish, corset, latex and PVC enthusiasts and retailers rejoice! The lovely Ms. Beckinsale is back to showcase your finest designs in another grey-hued action-filled installment of the Underworld franchise.
Ah, the series of Neo-goth Vampire movies continues! And with the original Selene, played by Kate Beckinsale, at the center of it. Fetish, corset, latex and PVC enthusiasts and retailers rejoice! The lovely Ms. Beckinsale is back to showcase your finest designs in another grey-hued action-filled installment of the Underworld franchise. And believe it or not, I’m not being entirely facetious.
With the production of these Underworld movies, we got sort of the new archetype for Vampire films. No sparkly nonsense here. No weepy acquiescing to their depression. Here, the vampires have things to do, asses to kick, throats to tear into, Lycans and humans to kill. Plenty of blood and gore here, just like it should be.
This time around, in Underworld Awakening, humans have discovered the Vampires and the Lycans and have started hunting them down, trying to eradicate these “infected” beings. Selene is captrued and frozen and then awakens 12 years later. She’s pretty pissed off and helps in the fight against humankind.
Lots of people get a bloody death in this. That’s a good thing for a movie that involes vampires and werewolves. I don’t want to hear a vampire moping around becuase his girlfriend might like a werewolf more than him. Boo fucking hoo. Why do you have a girlfriend, anyway? You’re a vampire. You can seduce anyone you want and make them worship you. Did you miss the point of being a vampire? I think so. You’re in charge here, not your school boy sense of romance. Rend flesh, drink blood and take control of your awesome powers. That goes for the ladies, too. Stop pining and take what you want. You’re VAMPIRES.
Underworld Awakening is directed by a duo I’m not familiar with that have umlauts and things above letters in their names. They do a pretty good job here with the action and such. The only complaint I have is the occasionaly, because everything is in that monochromatic grey, sometimes it’s a little hard to see what’s going on. But for the most part it’s fine. And like I said, there’s lots of audience-wincing pain-dealing in this. Blood, compound arm fractures, heads split open, all sorts of vampire/lycan appropriate stuff here. It’s all very slick and mono-chromatic. There is actually rather little actual red. But you get the idea.
The plot, though not the first of its’ kind, manages to have some complications that ups the ante’ here and has potential for what will surely expand into a fifth in the series. Granted, it’s not for mensa members, but this one is mostly about the action anyway. Kate Beckinsale is totally badass in her return as Selene, and Stephen Rea does an excellent American accent as the not so innocuous scientist in charge at Antigen, the company where Selene finds herself captive. The character Michael Corvin, once played by Scott Speedman, appears briefly without dialogue, but with a relevant part to play. Wes Bentley is listed as in this but uncredited, and I wonder if he was the Corvin role here. Charles Dance appears as a vampire leader preferring his flight response to his fight one. Not many of the other characters here are all that memorable so you don’t need to think about them.
If you like the Underworld series of films, I suspect you’ll be into this. Especially since they do less blabbity blab and more action. But alas, Underworld Awakening is really for the fans of the franchise, or Beckinsale. this is worth 3 kittenhands to the fans, less for the not so much. It’s decent, but streaming it will make you feel better.
~ Neil T. Weakley, your average movie-goer, finding January is keeping to its’ expectations.