Underworld – Reel Film Chronicles

Underworld: Blood Wars

So in the previous Underworld film (Awakening) we advance the story along by the fact that humans have now discovered that both vampires and werewolves are a real thing, and with that, a number of doors open to some interesting antagonists. But Awakening didn’t even fulfill that, instead using the human factor as a catalyst for the events that went down. That’s fine. What’s not so fine is that Blood Wars completely disregards humanity. With this being the fifth entry, I would have hoped that there was a little more focus and foresight into either ending the series or expanding the world beyond the “simple” war between vampires and lycans. With Resident Evil’s fifth entry coming out around the same time (I think it was in the same month as Blood Wars, actually) I can’t help but draw a simple comparison in our protagonists journey: Alice’s (Resident Evil) story starts off with a lot of mystery and is neatly (and I use that word dubiously) explained and wrapped up the literally titled Final Chapter. Selene’s backstory is seemingly explored to its extent within the first two films and diminishes thereafter in each entry. Instead, those later Underworld movies introduce Selene’s daughter and other…

Underworld: Awakening

After taking a little break, Kate Beckinsale drops in from a rooftop to fill in the role of Selene again for this series fourth iteration, and I couldn’t be more excited. While I had some fun with Rise of the Lycans, it was ultimately a letdown as it retreads familiar story, so I was eager to pick up Selene’s story for Awakening. As the film’s prologue played out, I tried very hard to stop myself from questioning the direction that the filmmakers decided to take things, and by the end of the film I found surface level overall satisfaction, yet I couldn’t stop wondering if they had done things a bit differently. To be fair, I hate doing that. I hate thinking and advocating that the filmmakers could make a better story, or an entirely different film: I’m no screenwriter (nay, barely a writer at all) so I certainly couldn’t do any better, but that doesn’t stop me from spewing forth some my “better” film ideas. It also makes me feel icky in this day of age where the fandom stumbles into creating online movements toward studios to release director cut…

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

I always had the impression that Rise of the Lycans was a misfire in the Underworld series fueled by the loss of Kate Beckinsale. Maybe I was barely paying attention, but the advertising of the film definitely led me to believe that Kate was in the film, and when I discovered she was replaced by someone who looks pretty similar (Rhona Mitra), that I had lost most of my interest in going to see the prequel. The same thing happened in the previews of the film Doomsday, also starring Mitra and mistaken for Beckinsale, except that I couldn’t pass up Doomsday in theatres and was happy to revisit the film fairly recently to appreciate what a ride it was (and Mitra kicked a ton of ass in that film). This was my first viewing of Rise of the Lycans and I’m still not quite sure why this film exists. Didn’t we cover most of the ground here before in the previous two films? I always had the impression that Rise of the Lycans was a misfire in the Underworld series fueled by the loss of Kate Beckinsale. Maybe I was barely…

Underworld: Evolution

Immediately, we abandon the slick confines the original’s city, mansions and underground settings for the (somewhat) blanket openness of Eastern Europe. The story picks up just where we left off as well, with Selene and Michael on the run from the aftermath of the mayhem before, including the (spoiler for the first film) slaying of Victor. I’m just about fully on board with Evolution delving deeper into the lore of the “Vampire-Lycan” war and appreciative that it ties a number of strings together, including our main vampire played by Kate Beckinsale all without feeling like story beats and characters are just done for the sake of being convenient or filler. I mentioned in the previous film that there were very few (if any) human characters present, which has been rectified in Evolution. Rectified, because I need to see how our vampires and werewolves perform in the face of your average human, which helps craft this world’s reality against our own. There’s a scene early on where Michael is chased into the woods by a group of humans – as he resists the…