Overview

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.

Yes... Finally someone else knows what they're talking about.

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.

I would like to counter the few loopholes that were mentioned.

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

*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

I am glad other people thought this movie blew. I seriously was completely unimpressed by this Vampires vs. Werewolves movie. There is no way even a pack of werevolves could take out an elder vampire. I am sorry, but the plot stunk. It was to loose, there wasn't even a resemblence of a tight plot. The plot twist was expected. This is just another action over plot movies.

Monty

Thank you Monty... Finally someone that can see through special effects and action sequences.

You know, I wasn't asking for some mindbending plot or something... but I at least wanted something on par with Blade or even Blade 2. Those had respectable storylines and great action to keep a nice pace going throughout the movies. Underworld was a cheap cash in that really had no value to it at all.

The trilogy thing may be a rumor, but given the ending that we saw it wouldn't surprise me if we see a couple more.

No, the movie was great.
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.

I know many people bash this movie because they think its an overdose of special effect action, like those old cliche action series shows on USA or whatnot, but Underworld is extremely above all that #####. In fact, I thought it was great on story and everything else because it's different from the common do-right-love-humor sort of nonsense that has been popping up lately. There was one small argument I must make in the contradictions poised against this gorily good movie; that would be the werewolves vs. the vampires and how the werewolves easily kick their ass, yet the vamps are still winning the war. One must assume the vamps greatly outnumber those rabid puppies because where as vamps are part of a high-class society, the lycans are street hoods who fight and kill each other for sport! Everyone has their opinions, but at least make the arguments against the movie with some logic and think things through first! Sheesh...

I absolutely loved this movie !!!

I loved the entire concept. The whole Vampire Vs. Lycan(sp?) Underground war.
The action. The Grittyness. The Weapons.

I just loved this movie. I can't wait for part 2 to come out.

i heard that this movie sucked so i never saw it but looking at wut rpgdreamer said and wut most said i probably wont like it.Well i know this isnt much but wut else can i say, i have to take ur words for it so

I liked this movie alot too. Although now since I know the talking parts of it, I pretty much skip through to the action scenes. I didn't read through everything in rpgdreamer's post(sorry) but I saw you said Viktor had been sleeping for 200 years. I don't think they specified this in the movie, especially because he would have been sleeping for only 100 years. 200 years asleep, 100 awake. If he had been sleeping 200 years, then maybe Selene waking him up a few days earlier might not have been so bad, maybe.

Let me just say that I LOVED Underworld and I can't wait until the next ones come out!!

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. I can't wait for the sequel!!

eh....I suppose some people have their own tastes. Not only has the majority of people that have seen it hated it, but even I thought it was stupid the first time I saw an ad for it. Very graphicy, but then again most movies these days are full of graphics. And a trilogy? Oh horror...another Matrix induced film? Probably.

The movie was good... graphically, though there were lots of points where everything seemed a little to sureal for my liking... Don't get me wrong I love vampires, but I didn't totaly enjoy the movie like I thought I would of.

hmm. i first saw an ad for this at a theater, and i was like :drool: x a million.. seriously. the pic of Kate just drew you in- eye candy.. kinda like Tomb Raider films. (even tho the second didnt compare to the first..yuck)
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?

The movie, while having an interesting base idea, wasn't backed up with anything. I felt that they were resorting to the whole "Matrix" idea too much, and not on the movie. They have many plot holes in the movie, which were too obvious to find. It would be pointless to restate them, though I am certain majority of you here know them.
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.

Gemini_Bloodian