It’s amazing that the Underworld series has even made it to four movies. These films aren’t major blockbusters (none of them have even hit $100 million theatrically in the U.S.), they aren’t embraced by critics (earning an average of roughly 25% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), and don’t even seem to have a cult following. No, this modestly successful horror/fantasy franchise seems to exist purely out of Les Wiseman’s insatiable desire to see his wife clad in skintight leather while shooting CGI werewolves. Fair enough, there are far less worse things to have to stare at for two hours, but now that Underworld has made it to a fourth movie it’s becoming increasingly hard to care about what passes for a mythology or even a story. The entire plot of the previous 3 movies is summed up in a 5-minute prologue to Underworld: Awakening and not only is it simplistic enough to cram into that timeframe, but actually proves easier to follow than in the full-length films. Underworld: Awakening virtually ditches all previously developed mythology in favor of a relentless series of shootouts, chase scenes, and unconvincing CGI monster mashes. I suppose if you’re entranced by the fetishistic spectacle the series has provided so far, that’s a good thing, But more than ever, it’s impossible to get emotionally involved with this material for even a second.
The film opens with humanity finally discovering the existence of vampires and werewolves and essentially wiping both from existence. Somehow Kate Beckinsale’s vampire werewolf hunter is spared and cryogenically frozen for twelve years. When she awakens she discovers that a child (India Eisley) born from her and her half-vampire/half-werewolf lover (who essentially doesn’t appear in the movie himself), was raised in a lab for some sort of testing. Beckinsale quickly kills her way through as many humans as it takes to retrieve her daughter then ends up fighting the few remaining distrustful vampires and werewolves for the rest of the movie to protect her. That’s pretty well it. There are other characters in play to setup those fights, but they are so insubstantial and so obviously there entirely to join the film’s mounting body count that it’s impossible to care about any of them.
Co-directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein carry on the franchise’s established aesthetic and do little else. Whether indoors or outdoors, every scene in the movie takes place at night with a palate of only blacks, blues, flashes of florescent white light and the occasional splash of blood red (as much as a teen-friendly rating will allow anyways). Within the co-directors’ stylized frames, characters either brood or fight and occasionally brood while fighting. Without the endless scenes of expository backstory from previous Underworld titles, this movie does at least move along at a quicker pace, so that’s something.
Every inch of Beckinsale’s leather clad body is leered upon by the roving cameras during the film for the pleasure of the fanboys everywhere and the actress again manages to infuse more life into her simplistic character that should be possible. Beckinsale is a far better actress than the Underworld movies allow her to be. While it’s a shame that she isn’t offered more interesting parts than this, she has proven more than capable of carrying the franchise and hopefully that will pay off for her eventually. She’s by far the best part of the Underworld movies and without her it’s hard to believe there would have been one sequel, let alone three.
In the end, there’s not that much to be said about Underworld: Awakening. It’s another geeky, gothic-horror-via-The Matrix action movie made for a particularly undemanding audience of teenage boys. Chances are you’ll know whether or not there’s even a point in you watching an Underworld movie by now and certainly the latest entry offers nothing new. You can’t really get mad about these movies though. They are just mindless fanboy fantasies and not offensively terrible. With this new movie being slightly more action packed than the others, I suppose if you like what you saw before, you’ll enjoy this all the more. This edition is even in 3-D, so now Beckinsale’s leather-clad butt and the poorly animated werewolves will pop off the screen and look, like, totally cool, for real. It’s all just forgettable fluff that best case scenario will please you momentarily before disappearing from memory. For everyone else, it will be ignored and instantly forgotten until the next sequel comes along and there will be another one. If the last movies somehow brought in a big enough audiences to warrant a follow-up, there’s no way it won’t happen again.
Rating: 
Rated 14A
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Michael Ealy, India Eisley
Directed by: Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein
Top image: A scene from Underworld: Awakening. Courtesy Sony Pictures.
