If this were the post-War era and you had a werewolf-vs.-vampire movie, all you'd need add for a lucrative box-office trifecta would be Abbott and Costello.
These days, of course, vampires and werewolves need guns. Lots and lots of guns. And martial arts training. And much leaping around and slaughtering in bullet-time. And black leather trenchcoats (for the men) and skin-tight leathers for the women. And a tinnitis-inducing goth-techno soundtrack.
Welcome to Underworld, a movie that was clearly sold as The Matrix meets Blade meets Romeo And Juliet, and is certainly no more than that. It is unlikely to add anything more to cinematic history than a debate on whether Kate Beckinsale is hotter in skin-tight black leather than The Matrix's Carrie-Anne Moss. (Not one to shy away from a controversial stand, I say Kate. Rrowr.).
It is a time when the centuries-old war between vampires and lycans (werewolves) seems to have been pretty much settled in the vamps' favour.
The place?
Well, it's Budapest masquerading as anytown with gothic architecture and a subway. Beckinsale plays Selene, a warrior-vampiress who begins to suspect that her nominal leader Kraven (Shane Brolly) is up to no good.
"No good" turns out to be a plot by Kraven and the enemy to develop a genetic secret weapon, the key DNA for which resides in the genes of a hospital resident named Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman).
Got that? Don't worry. Len Wiseman -- a career art director making his directorial debut -- cares about the plot as much as he cares about character development (why are Beckinsale and Speedman overpoweringly attracted to each other?
Because they're the only recognizable stars in the movie, duh!).
What Underworld is really about is millions of explosive "squibs" and skirmish after skirmish between unwashed werewolves and dapper vamps, most of the time in human form. Indeed, after a while it all begins to seem more of a war between the unkempt and the kempt, as if the scruffy models from Parasuco ads had declared a fatwa on their opposite numbers at Armani.
Having set out to commit highway-homage, Wiseman does deliver competently stylish mayhem on a budget.
The ending, in particular, has some guilty thrills.
I maintain, however, that it is a sad day when vampires and werewolves need guns and bad fashion to be scary.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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