The Technodrome Forums - Underworld: Blood Wars

Remember when I watched all of the Resident Evil movies? Now I watched all of the Underworld movies! Actually, I'd seen the first two many years ago (and not unlike the Resident Evil series, I originally found the first one oh-kay but found the second one so, so terrible I was unwilling to continue watching any more sequels). Here we go:

* Underworld (2003): I remember mostly liking this one the first time around, though finding it drawn out and boring at times. I think I enjoyed it a whole lot more this time around. The action seemed more evenly spread around this go around, and I liked the mythology and world-building of it. I found I'd forgotten whole parts in it that were pretty cool (the way Selene dispatched Viktor, for example). I do remember it being equally as disappointing the first time around that when we finally see the vampire/werewolf hybrid in action (Michael, played by Scott Speedman), who's built up as being "more powerful than both!" all he really succeeds in doing is getting smacked around a lot and knocked out a few times.

* Underworld: Evolution (2006): I remember this one just being terrible. Awful. Unwatchably rife with Resident Evil-like "look how COOOL she is," with lots of slow-mo. This time... not so! While I found the millions of flashbacks to the first movie annoying (and maybe it's because I'd just freshly rewatched the first one), I enjoyed all the little intricacies that tie into things from it. Markus was a credible threat and he had believable motivations. Decent ending! Sword through the head wasn't enough... you had to throw him into a helicopter's propeller. Yeah, I actually didn't mind this movie at all this time. I think I enjoyed it. Also, how I was disappointed that the Big Bad Vampire/Werewolf Hybrid in the last one got smacked around in his big reveal? Here its more of that. A lot. He even gets killed, almost, pretty pathetically. I don't get why both factions are so afraid of him. I feel like I could probably kill him. He seems to exist just to see how badly he can get beaten up/killed/near-killed/knocked unconscious.

* Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009): Had never seen it before, but I've always been curious about it because I've enjoyed Rhona Mitra in other projects. Basically it's the big flashback from the first movie made into a full movie. Still, even knowing exactly who lives and dies, I enjoyed seeing things that would later (earlier?) bear fruit in the other movies, even little ones like Tannis. And even knowing it was coming, Sonia's death is played fairly powerfully. It succeeds in making you root for the Lycans.

* Underworld: Awakening (2012): Wow, what happened here? It's not without its moments, but wow. Really, really bad in many ways. It's like Underworld jumped off the railroad tracks and became almost Resident Evil: Afterlife bad, complete with its own Umbrella Corporation (the "Antigen Corporation," same sort of MO, too). Still, unlike the Resident Evil movies, it sticks to its story and rules. Basically things are fast-forwarded to a post-apocalyptic future where humans know about vampires and werewolves and are going door to door killing them and fire-bombing their neighborhoods. And Selene had a daughter... while frozen, or something. And they didn't want to pay Scott Speedman so some doppelganger shows up and is quickly killed off (which kind of goes back to the "Why is anyone afraid of these super powerful hybrids?"). Really puzzling decisions here. Some of the biggest strengths of 1-3 was its attention to the mythology it'd developed, the history, and mystery of the different layers of the vampire and werewolf civilizations... sort of peeling those back, one by one. Here it's just all about an evil company (granted, run by werewolves... it was an unexpected but decent twist) looking to do experiments on vampires given carte blanche by apparently all the world's governments. And evil humans doing evil human things. The second half is actually quite a bit better, but this is definitely the worst of the bunch. Lots of slow-mo and "Look how COOL" shots, like the Resident Evil movies.

* Underworld: Blood Wars (2017): Eh... I'm really not sure about this one. It's definitely ambitious. Within an hour and a half, it tries to establish this whole expansive Game of Thrones-like web of other vampire covens, each with different histories and allegiances and abilities. I found it pretty funny how, with Awakening, they clearly left it open to bring back Scott Speedman as Michael at some later date (the climax of "Awakening" before the end credits was literally, "Where did Michael go? Where did he take the chopper to?"), they made it a point here to kill him off (off-screen, of course) to use as a motivation for Selene to be mad at new villain Marius... as if to say and commit to, "OK, he's not coming back. Let's at least do something with that." The daughter is gone, too... (though unlike the final Resident Evil movie, this one bothers to remember she has one) but it's worked into the plot, if haphazardly. Basically between movies, her daughter convinced Selene that the best thing for her own safety would be if her mom abandoned her... and is not to ever see her again or know where she is. Whuh? Does not compute. Again, very ambitious movie. I think it tried to do too much, doing each of its various pieces a disservice. I think they might have been trying to set up a spinoff for that young dude who is in one of those various young adult movie series... Divergent, or Allegiant or Hunger Games or something (but that's probably why he's in this and the last one). Way too much time is spent on him. I found it hard to find too much to be engaged with the whole way through (though, to be fair, I did have to pause it halfway through to watch the latest "Walking Dead"). The bad guy, Marius, isn't really much of anything. In fact, I just watched it but I'm still not really sure what his thing was beyond "I just want a little bit of your daughter's blood so I can win the war with the Lycans." Or maybe that was the other lady's thing, who she also opposed. But what's wrong with that? Why would you be against that, especially so soon after tangling with the rat-pack they've been reduced to in the last one? Definitely seems like a conscious decision was made to ignore large parts of "Awakening" here... namely, I dunno, the whole "POLICE FORCES ARE GOING DOOR TO DOOR LOOKING FOR VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES DAILY! THEY KNOW THEY EXIST AND ARE ACTIVELY ROOTING THEM OUT AND KILLING THEM ALL ACROSS THE WORLD, ALL DAY EVERYDAY!" thing. In this, the vampires are actively just having great big parties as before in their mansions with the metal slated windows that shutter during daylight (oh no, that's not suspicious at all to human passers-by), toasting with blood like it's no problem. Still, probably for the best they tip-toed around that. Spiritually, this feels closer to what an Underworld 3 would have been like had Beckinsale been down for it at the time. As is it's got good ideas in it, but the execution is kind of all over the map. Some genuinely good "holy ****!" moments that are earned. It's not quite willing to commit to being the final installment (but it's going to be... it was pretty much annihilated at the box office) but I think there's enough in the last act that it can serve as that somewhat satisfyingly. Very nice touch at the ending, I won't spoil it because this movie is still pretty fresh.

Definitely fair to compare it to the Resident Evil series. It's even got the whole "let's have the main character narrate an opening intro that brings us up to speed on all of the previous movies" thing at the beginning of each one, like those. Man, they must have shown Selene cutting Viktor's head in half diagonally from the first one about 10 times in flashbacks in all of the sequels. Still, where the Resident Evil movies seem first and foremost concerned with being vanity pieces to make Milla Jovovich look as COOOL and BADASSS as possible in every scene with super little care to develop a mythology or history or anything resembling a cohesive storyline or offering payoffs from previous films, the Underworld series genuinely tries. It does. It succeeds in many ways, fails at others, but I was pretty entertained the whole way. And on a purely "badass" level, Beckinsale succeeds in selling the multi-layered near-invincible killing machine thing far better than Jovovich. I wouldn't mind seeing a part 6, but no way will there be.

Here's a question: in part 1, Viktor berates Selene, that "always two asleep, one awake!" in terms of what elder vampires are active and not desiccated underground "sleeping" in their coven waiting to be awakened when it's their turn every 100 years. We see there's 3 sarcophagus manhole covers in the floor in Underworld 1 and 2. I think we even saw 3 sarcophaguses in part 3 when Tannis is rowing them away on the boat. We met Viktor in part 1. We met Marcus in part 2. Who is the third one? Who is #3? Was that supposed to be Charles Dance's character from 4 and 5? If not, that's a pretty big mystery/unanswered question we'll never get an answer to.