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Underworld March 9, 2004
#1 Guest_rpgdreamers_*
Posted 09 March 2004 - 03:27 PM
For centuries two clans from the dark world have been feuding with one another, the Vampires and the Lycans (werewolves). The feud reached its turning point in favor of one side, the vampires, when Kraven, a vampire, defeated the leader of the Lycans, Lucian. No record or evidence has proven this fact other than the words of Kraven. Still since the time of the so called death of Lucian, the Lycans have been hunted down to near extinction by the Vampires. We are brought to the present at a subway. The Death Dealers, an elite vampire warrior class in charge of hunting down the last remaining Lycans, are hunting a group of Lycans using the subway. Things however are not what they appear to be as the Lycans themselves are hunting a medical student by the name of Michael Corvin using the subway to get home. After the altercation at the subway between the Vampires and the Lycans, the leader of the Death Dealers, Selene, witnessed some possible evidence that the Lycans are more than just a few in numbers near extinction. Upon further investigation back at the vampire mansion, Selene concluded on a hunch that the Lycans were indeed after Michael Corvin. Why the Lycans are after a human is unknown to her but she deemed it to be important enough to confront Kraven, the current leader of the vampires, with this hunch. Hearing Selene tell her theory that the Lycans are more powerful in numbers than previously thought and that Lucian may not be dead after all without any proof has angered Kraven. But what even angers him more was the fact that she seem to express feelings for this Michael Corvin. Kraven orders Selene confined to the mansion while he has the other vampires investigate her possible theory. Selene however has other ideas and disobeyed Kraven by escaping from the mansion in hopes of tracking down Michael Corvin. As she shadows Michael Corvin, she learned of a Lycan plot that will threaten the race of Vampires. But no vampire will believe her to help her. How will Selene be able to fight the Lycans on her own but protect Michael Corvin at the same time? And whom can she get help from within the Vampire clan? These are some of the questions that the story will answer during its 2 hour run as viewers are taken into a dark world between vampires and werewolves.
Good
There are three things that come to mind when thinking what's good about the movie. They are sight, sound, and Kate Beckinsale. In terms of sight, the movie really looks good. The setting of the movie is done at nightfall and underground, giving the viewers that Underworld theme. The costumes of the characters all look good and fit the movie overall theme which are dark, gothic, and lots of leather and rain. The special effects of the Underworld creatures are good. The look of the movie has that Blade meets the Matrix cross over look. Even some of the action sequences look cool. Examples of these are the slow motion sequence where you see Selene turning around and throwing those round silver things at a werewolf and the part where Selene is shooting at the floor in a circle to make a get away hole by dropping down to the bottom floor. So from a sight stand point, the movie just look awesome. But looks aren't everything you know. From a sound stand point, the main theme of these super natural movies would either be heavy rock or heavy metal, even rap if it fits the character look such as with the Blade movies. So naturally the main theme in the Underworld is heavy metal music playing during car chases and gun fights. Giving the added look that this is a bad ass movie you are watching. The sound effects in the background of the movie are exceptionally done well with rain coming down and the sound of bullets going off, showcasing just how clear each of the sound effects in the movie are. The clarity of the sound in this movie is provided by Dolby Digital, one of the best in the business. Try watching the movie through a headphone set and you will really appreciate how good the sounds are in this movie. That's all I have to say about that. The last good thing about this movie is Kate Beckinsale playing the role of Selene. Beckinsale may not be the hottest or sexiest actress around but she fit the role of Selene perfectly. She looks like a Selene and moves like a Selene. I can't think of any other actress that would look just as good in that leather outfit. Let me re-phrase that. I'm sure there are other actresses that can fit that leather outfit and look sexy too but they probably wouldn't look like Selene of the Underworld like the way Selene was meant to look like from the script point of view. It's just too bad that even though Beckinsale looks good as Selene, the character itself is plague with a bad story and no real supporting characters to play off of. Hopefully the next movie will have a good cast of characters around Selene that Beckinsale can better interact with. Hopefully mind you. When all is said and done, the movie just looks good from every different angle. Unfortunately looking just good isn't enough overall.
Bad
Where to start on what's bad with the movie? Well I guess I'll start off with the obvious, the story. The concept of the story is base on a war between werewolves and vampires. This sound like it can be a very cool story if it is done right. However that is not the case with this movie. The problem with the story is that some of the concept behind this plot of a war between werewolves and vampires don't fit together to make any sense. For hundreds of years, the vampires have hunted down the werewolves to the point of near extinction. Okay that's fine but throughout the movie; you witnessed numerous battles between werewolves and vampires. The one thing that is consistent in the movie is that the werewolves are so much more powerful than the vampires when they become werewolves that they can shred these vampires to bits. Even with machine guns equipped with silver bullets, vampires could barely manage to kill one werewolf, much less a pack of them. So it's very hard to believe how these vampires can be winning a war against the werewolves. If they had problems killing them now with machine guns loaded with silver bullets, how where they able to kill the werewolves back when there were no guns in those times? This made the whole plot of vampires beating the werewolves less creditable. Another flaw is that vampires hate werewolves because they consider werewolves as a race that is beneath them and doesn't deserve to exist. Werewolves hate vampires due to the way that vampires have mistreated them during the past. As the plot thickens, it's revealed that one of the reasons why vampires are hunting down werewolves is to keep their race free of any possible cross breeding between a vampire and a werewolf. This is consistent with why the vampires continue to hunt and kill werewolves. However a revelation is revealed that the reason why the werewolves are after Michael Corvin is because his gene can withstand a bite from a vampire. By being bitten by a vampire as a werewolf, Corvin will become a new specie that have genes between the two species, something that the vampires forbid. Again consistent with why Vampires are killing werewolves. But the problem is on the werewolves side where there's no logic to why the werewolves would want to have a new specie that have cross genes from both species. We know vampires think werewolves are less than dirt and have treated them as such but why would the werewolves want to create a new specie that have both genes? To make peace with the vampires who have treated them as dirt and have nearly hunted them down to extinction? This is the part where it doesn't make any sense in the story. The problem with that is the story never really explained to us why the werewolves want to make a new specie that has both genes of vampire and werewolves. We know why the vampires don't want a new specie; it's to keep the vampire bloodline pure. But why do the werewolves want a new specie? Don't know. It makes the plot seem senseless. Another hole in the plot is that the great vampire overlord Viktor has been sleeping for 200 years. Apparently it's because he's rejuvenating his strength. Rejuvenating his strength? He's a vampire, an immortal. Someone who doesn't grow old and get sick cause he's already dead. There's nothing to be rejuvenating to begin with. At the very least, if a vampire were to sleep, it would be for one day to regain whatever strength that it lost but to sleep for 200 years made little sense. If you're going to wake up after 200 years, you should at least be shock at the new surroundings. There are cars, planes, guns, new kind of clothes, computers, ect now. But old Viktor didn't miss a beat. It just didn't make any sense as to why one vampire need to sleep for hundred of years while all the other low vampires don't need to sleep for hundred of years. Just another prime example of loop holes in the story. Now we are going to move on to the characters in the story. First, the romance between Selene and Michael Corvin. It's just not believable at all. I can understand Selene wanting to help Michael Corvin since she's the good guy or girl in this movie but to all of a sudden to fall in love with him without knowing the guy at all. We are talking about within a span of maybe two nights where Selene throws away everything she has with the vampire clan just to save someone she barely knew or talk to because she love him. That made no sense to me. What made it worst was that there's no chemistry between actress Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman. This was what you would call a force romance down the viewers' throat. For the whole movie, I felt like the movie was trying to force fed me Michael Corvin. About half way into the movie, I was already hoping Michael Corvin would die just so I don't have to see that character anymore. But alas that's not the case. I felt this way on pretty much all the characters in this game. That's not a good sign if you find the characters to be annoying and boring. And it's not a good sign when you seem to be doubting the plot of the story. With those two facts, it made watching the movie nearly boring and a pain. The story and characters are just plain bad in this movie.
Bonus
The fact that the Underworld DVD package is only 1 DVD instead of a 2 DVD set should give you an indication that you shouldn't be expecting much in terms of bonuses. Most DVD package that has great bonuses will include a second DVD just for the bonus features alone. Still even though there's no second DVD disc there are bonus features in this DVD. The special DVD features have four featurettes. They are: Stunts featurette, shows how some of the stunts in the movie were done, Sight & Sound featurette, a quick run down on how some of the gun fights were done in the movie, Creature Effect featurette, deals with the special effects used to bring creatures of the night to life, and lastly The Making of the Underworld featurette, which of course showcase how in general the movie was made. Other bonuses include Trailers, Music Video, Story Board comparison, and Commentaries from the crew behind the Underworld movie. In general the Special Bonuses aren't really that great and not very in-depth. They will spend a few minutes on each bonus segment but that's about it. This is why there is no second DVD disc just for the bonus package because you can cram everything into the one disc. I didn't spend too much time looking over the special features because most of them hadn't captured my interests at all.
Final Analysis
You know that old saying, "Never judge a book by its cover." Well it fits perfectly for this movie. On the outside, if you look at all the previews and commercials for Underworld, this movie looks like it's an exciting blockbuster action movie. This is probably why so many people went to see this movie during its first week in theater. However if you start to take a look at the inside, you will notice that it's not as good as it looks from the outside. The downfall of this movie is that the story is not very interesting and the characters are boring. The sight and sound may look good but in order for movie goers to be involve with the movie, they have to care about the story and the characters within the story, something that the movie failed to do. Base on the fact that the movie didn't cost a whole lot to make and the returns from both the Theater and DVD releases, one can expect a sequel is in the works. Hopefully the sequel will have a much better story and characters this time around.
#2
Posted 09 March 2004 - 05:58 PM
Actually, I believe Lucian is the one who badly wanted that to happen maybe just to want to see a vampire and lycan offspring which he couldn't have with Sonya or maybe just to spite Viktor. And the other werewolves go with it because in that way, they have someone who can kill the vampires for them and it is not a thorough coward act because they did try to make Michael a lycan first so that he could sorta bond with them. Besides, it won't reflect that badly on them as the new species have some lycan blood as well.
I believe that is necessary because there are three vampire elders, Viktor and lady who got drained dry and the one with the gene. With three elders, there will most likely be different groups of followers and you know people, they will soon start to fight among themselves to see which group is the strongest and bleh. I think that is why they make it that only one elder will walk the earth and overlook the vamp community while two other sleep and they make the cycle fair enough for them to have followed for so long.
I think that is why the awakening of a vamp elder needs to be done by the elders so that they could 'teach' the waking up one the things that happened via the organised memories like what Viktor mentioned in the movie. And besides, Viktor had not sleep for long before he got awakened by Selene and when one is accustomed to sleeping for a long time and waking up to unfamiliar surroundings, I think they grow accustomed to it. But if you noticed, Viktor uses a kickbutt sword instead of a gun, a sign of his 'age'.
I love this show, well partly because I like anything to do with vampires... but this show is better than Blade to me at least and I love the way the dark theme is expressed. I bought the VCD!! XD
This post has been edited by seluna: 09 March 2004 - 05:59 PM

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#3
Posted 12 March 2004 - 01:15 AM
Underworld was horrible, annoying characters that contributed nothing to the plot... Unemotional and unbelievable performances, and just a generally lame storyline that never quite comes together. I really can't believe they're doing a trilogy out of this movie, because there's really nothing to work with at all.
*cries*
A trilogy?
It was good as one movie...
But A trilogy?
I sense Matrix...Trilogy whores.
Anyway, I thought the movie was cool. Probably cause I'm a sucker for Vamps...lol
#4
Posted 12 March 2004 - 07:14 AM
Monty
#5
Posted 12 March 2004 - 02:32 PM
You might look at it deeply by talking about the plot and some facts about werewolves vs. vampire stuff, but if you look even deeper and watch the movie carefully while comparing it to many other movies, you'll notice many things.
I'm expecting a sequel soon.
Look at the matrix, it never really had a story, just a lot of fictional cyberpunk crap put into it with a twisted plot, but people loved it, because of the action.
If underworld would had been an action whore, everyone woudl be all over it.

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#6 Guest_LordGraven_*
Posted 15 March 2004 - 04:25 PM
#8
Posted 20 March 2004 - 08:29 PM


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#9
Posted 21 March 2004 - 06:46 PM
I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.
I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart."
--Roland of Gilead(Stephen King)
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The child bless thee and keep thee forever.
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#10 Guest_K_*
Posted 16 April 2004 - 01:41 PM
That said, I noticed that the person(webmaster I guess) obviously only watched the move once. The part where he/she says that it doesn't make sense that a vampire (Viktor) needs to regain his strength. He's not reagining his strength, he was sleeping. He says in the movie that the three eldars "leap-frog through time. One awake, two asleep...". They take turns ruleing over the vampires. Also, there's not much of a love story going on between Selene and Micheal. I think the charaters are supposed to feel a conecetion. And they only kiss once. And it was a trick on Selene's part. Also, at the beginning of the movie, the voice of Selene says that the lycans are no longer subject to the moon, they can change at will. So up until that point, the vampires had the advantage. But now that the lycans can change at will, the balance of power changed.
#11
Posted 16 April 2004 - 01:58 PM

Appendix²
I'm a microcake
and a bug too
#13
Posted 17 April 2004 - 09:28 PM
and yes, the whole plot had holes in it. i have no idea what it was held together with.
i still like it though. im a sucker for action films
oh, and theres gonna be another one? links anyone?
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#14
Posted 18 April 2004 - 08:27 PM
The masses didn't seem to care that majority of the movies storyline didn't make sense. They only went to the movie for one reason, and one reason only: to watch masses of people, kill eachother brutally and senslessly, and the fact that the people whom are killing eachother are vampires and wherewolves, only adds to the bloodlust.
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