Movie Review: Underworld: Evolution

3/10

In this movie's case, it is good to be able to comment on its plot while simultaneously summarising your review.

I would lock this movie in a sealed coffin in a locked vault under a ruined fortress AND MELT THE SODDING KEY SO NO-ONE CAN RELEASE THE FILM LATER!

Sometimes it's good to feel you can provide a service to the betterment of mankind.

In the case of this review I hope it saves you two hours of your life.

Probably not enough to make up for watching the whole of The Assassination Of Jesse James on my recommendation (it was film of 2008) and feeling I had wasted your time, but goes a little way to repaying that debt. (sorry, Gary)

This particular impotent, cinematic dead end is the second movie in this disastrous pantheon (which inexplicably also includes the original and the new prequel, Rise Of The Lycans).

The original Underworld, while nonsensical, unfocused and containing little or no internal logic was excused in part by its clear concept as a rather obvious, erm, if you'll excuse the term, "wanktape" for its director Len Wiseman, who is the husband of the undeniably rather delicious star (in this film out of love, no doubt) Kate Beckinsale and on that level it achieved its goals with thousands of shots of his missus in outrageously tight PVC and vampire fangs cavorting about and shooting stuff in slow motion, occasionally pausing to look gorgeous in the dark blue lighting aesthetic that accompanies all low rent horror movies trying to look expensive, as well as many Goth-Rock music videos. I bet the kleenex company shares jumped after this film came out as thousands of pubescent teenagers
(and its director) started down the road to blindness.

It was excusable if incoherent - plus Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen are OK in it. To be fair, Michael Sheen is usually good - here it is despite the movie, not because of it.

All bets are off, however, when he inflicts more of this drivel upon the world. Underworld: Evolution is so hideously unlovable it upsets me that there's no justification for a lower score.

It's crimes are legion, but chief amongst these is sheer lack of cohesion or sense. Sure, there's a back story and "mythos" here, but it reveals itself only after a lot of work on the viewers part - not least because in parts this movie contradicts its predecessor.

Characters, buildings and plot devices come and go with little but a two line introduction, Derek Jacobi turns up (a performance as solid and phoned in as his irrelevant turn in The Golden Compass) only to be shortly dispatched in a totally cursory manner.

The plot is pathetically simple, yet has a self indulgent obsession with its own pseudo-epic quality, every hackneyed "twist" met with over serious expressions and a clear attempt at earth shattering effect that the preambles have not earned in the slightest degree.

Look - this is the plot - scary vamp wants to do bad thing. Nice vamp and her simpering hybrid boytoy must stop him. OK? I have respect for films that accept their simplicity and go all out for staying true to their internal logic - a perfect example is the bonkers Shoot-Em-Up, or even more silly is Planet Terror - sadly, Underworld: Evolution is no more intelligent or innovative than these but has a pretension to intelligence and innovation that I can't bear.

It has a period set flashback prelude! A wise, doomed yet morally questionable plot mover-alonger! Incredibly important sounding events noone has taken the time to establish! A couple of glimpses of breasts!

The quality of the acting is hilariously bad - emotions range from Silent to Loud, the major characters are the worst kind of two-dimensional computer game avatars and the romance between the leads is reduced to little more than a lighting change.

The movie as it continues, frequently contradicts itself or refuses to explain what it is on about - in one scene a major character returns to life for no other reason than that it is useful to the story at that point. That's not to say his resurrection is impossible under the story, there is certainly no reason that by the film's logic he couldn't come back to life earlier on - it's just that they wanted you to feel bad about him for a bit and create some false tension.

Hell, I don't care about spoilers - look - it's her boy toy who cops it but she refuses to leave him behind at the boat he was killed on and instead takes his lifeless corpse to the final battle FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN ENSURING HE'S THERE LATER!

You will know by now that I despise lazy and clumsy film making above most other sins of the silver screen and this "rebirth" is just one example of where this film fails to rise above even the poorest of competitors.

To sum up In U:E's case, it is an undoubtedly stylish film, but like with women, good looks can hide a multitude of sins - in this case beneath the PVC bodysuit this film has absolutely nothing to offer, and less to say.

Look, I realise there is almost certainly a very dedicated fanboy/girl community out there who look on these movies as their Star Wars or at least their Serenity, but come on! The whole thing resembles nothing so much as a particularly pretentious and obscure Power Ballad video with about as much plot.

Even having said all this, I must admit that even the most unlovable of films may still have been genuinely excusable if I have one iota of fun out of the experience (intended by the makers or not), or cared even the slightest about its story or characters.

In the case of Underworld: Evolution, suffice to say that I did not.

A