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STEVE PERSALLTrigger-happy but strangely bloodless, this Matrix wanna-be plays like the night that never ends.
Len Wiseman's Underworld is something old, nothing new, lots of stuff borrowed and tinted in a boring shade of gunmetal blue. How Wiseman managed to turn a can't-miss premise - vampires vs. werewolves - into such a lifeless enterprise is more interesting than its violence, of which there isn't enough.
First of all, Len, either make a movie in color or black and white, not some blunted attempt at moody cinematography that drains the screen of any sensory thrills. Even the Matrix tricks ripped off (yet again) fail to impress. It's an artful touch, I guess, making blood red the only shade shining through the murk. Why not splash a little more of it around?
Perhaps in more vibrant surroundings the bland personalities populating Underworld might be more compelling. Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbor) stars as Selene, a vampire devoted to hunting down her species' nemeses, the Lycans, making us wonder why vampires don't have a cool-sounding genus name, too. Then you wonder why two formidable monster forms with all their gravity-defying powers, superhuman strength and vicious jaws need to carry such big guns.
Oh, I see. Wiseman needs some kind of toys to embellish the standard chase-and-shoot sequences that pop up every 10 minutes or so. Claw-to-claw combat could make Underworld more interesting. The guns are cool from a ballistic standpoint, automatic firepower with glowing bullets in easily switched clips - in slo-mo and high volume, of course - for all those trigger fetishists.
Selene carries one of those bad boys around like a fashion accessory, with the rest of her ensemble copied from Carrie-Anne Moss in the Matrix flicks. Beckinsale pouts like a runway model when a nastier disposition would juice up the action. During one of her shooting sprees, Selene realizes the Lycans are stalking a human, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman). That's a no-no for some reason that is not explained, so the audience can't relate to the terror. We're safe. It's the monsters that have things to worry about.
Michael's family history makes him a prime candidate for crossbreeding to create an uber-creature. Selene knows he should be eliminated but he's so cute. Danny McBride's increasingly convoluted plot raises more questions than it answers, muddying the waters with secret pacts between coven leaders, a cryptically scheming handmaid (Sophia Myles) and a vampire elder (Bill Nighy) awakened from hibernation (huh?) one year too soon and he's grumpy.
McBride's screenplay explains everything in drips and dapples of quasi-poetic dialogue favored by fantasists since the Dungeons and Dragons fad. These circuitous declarations are verbal buffers between violent scenes and teasing glimpses of Lycans transforming into bad doggies. When the crossbreeding at the core of the story finally occurs, the resulting creature isn't as impressive as Lycans unbound; the makeup is designed for sex appeal, not horror. The same can be said for the entire film.
But it worked for Blade, The Crow and certainly the Matrix movies. That's all Wiseman and McBride are concerned about, riding the trenchcoat tails of previous paydays. The filmmakers even set up a sequel they think Underworld deserves with Selene's last voiceover. But all that will endure are the characters' names, which will become Internet user IDs for geek legions wishing they had a richer life. One improvement they might try: better movie choices.
Underworld
Grade: D
Director: Len Wiseman
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Shane Brolly, Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, Sophia Myles, Erwin Leder Screenplay: Danny McBride
Rating: R; violence, profanity, sexual situations
Running time: 121 min.