Underworld: Awakening

Rating: **1/2

I congratulate the makers of Underworld: Awakening for being able to make a mountain out of a molehill; from the humble elevator pitch of “Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves” comes one of the most densely packed mythologies of modern movie franchises covering fantasy, action, sci-fi, horror, and borderline homages to the bondage subculture. The films are a proverbial genre frappé, carried mostly on the notion that fan boys would watch Kate Beckinsale reading the phone book if she were dressed head to toe in skin tight leather and firing a big, damn gun.

In the series fourth outing, Underworld, like action franchise cousin Mission: Impossible, proves that age ain’t nothing but a number. The action scenes are brisk, well-executed and enthralling, and Beckinsale proves that after a break of a couple years from kicking any kind of butt that she can still stab, shoot, throw ninja stars and set off explosives with the best of them. In other words if you don’t like loud noises, monsters, death metal, and assorted on-screen carnage, this is not the movie for you. Reversely, if you’re looking for a movie with coherent storytelling, thoughtful characters and logical pacing, this is not the film for you either.

A couple of years ago, there was a film released called Ultraviolet about a future world where a virus turned ordinary people into superhumans who were then hunted and killed by an evil medical research company. In this uncertain time, one rebellious female warrior refused to go down without a fight and struggled to protect a child that both sides wanted dead, but who had the power to end the war. I only bring this up because Underworld: Awakening follows almost exactly the same plotline.

Taking place in the not too distant future, the secret war between vampires and Lycans (werewolves, remember) has become a not-so secret war where the human race is trying to rid the world of both immortal species. Captured by the obviously evil Antigen, vampire warrior goddess Selene (Beckinsale) has been cryogenically frozen and studied for over 12 years, when the breakout of “Subject 2” causes the release of Selene as well. Caught up in the new normal of the world, Selene seeks to get to the bottom of Antigen’s true purpose, copes with the revelation of “Subject 2” being her daughter Eve (India Eisley), and looks really, really good while fighting some new bad guy every five minutes.

The sheer brazenness of these films, which act as though coherent storytelling and practical character motivation is a luxury of script-writing, is something I rather enjoy. For instance, when Eve reveals that she’s really Selene’s previously unknown daughter it’s in the midst of a car chase, the human detective investigating the resurgence in supernatural activity seems to disappear from the plot for an hour, and Michael, the werewolf hybrid played by Scott Speedman who was so central to the plot of the first two films, appears only briefly and is played by a stand in. Granted, Underworld isn’t a Tolkien-esque tome filled with back story and detail, but I believe there is a minimum amount of work necessarily to at least build your world in three dimensions.

The technical edge this film has over the previous instalments is that it’s screening in 3-D and in IMAX. Now I didn’t see it in IMAX, so maybe that makes a difference, but watching an Underworld film in 3-D is an experience in squinting. It’s not good when you give up on the 3-D glasses and watch the film without them about 50 per cent of the time. If you have similar issues with 3-D, maybe only where the glasses for the action scenes, but I will say that one sequence where heroes let off a grenade of silver powder to take out a group of bad wolves looked amazing in 3-D. Seeing the little specs of silver dance out from the screen was almost worth the 3-D surcharge. Almost.

I also think that Swedish directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein have a better idea of what an Underworld is supposed to be, but that idea is putting emphasis on action and cool looking effects over a substantive script. Still, it’s an improvement considering that past films have had aspirations of Shakespeare and Puzo, but it also means you hiring decent actors who get wasted. Stephen Rea as the head of Antigen looks downright unsure what he’s doing on this film, and Canadian actor Kris Holden-Ried, who plays a werewolf weekly on the hit Showcase series on Lost Girl, deserved a, ahem, meatier part.

But despite everything I just wrote, most of which being arm chair quarterbacking post game, I still walked out of Underworld Awakening feeling moderately satisfied. It is what it is, Kate Beckinsale in skin tight leather fighting monsters for an hour and a half. If only all movies were this self-aware.

Red Riding Hood

Rating: ***

Red Riding Hood is a mess. It’s got purposefully stilted-acting, incidents of sheer lunacy, harlequin-style romance, scary scenes that are not particularly scary and gory scenes that are not particularly gory. But having said all that there’s some kind of magic at work here by director Catherine Hardwicke.

The (kinda) modern retelling of the classic fairytale “Little Red Riding Hood” starts with a theme used popularly in Hardwicke’s last supernatural outing Twilight: an innocent girl torn between two lovers. The titular heroine is Valerie played by Amanda Seyfried, who with her big Disney princess eyes looks like she just walked out of a fairytale herself. Valerie’s in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), a woodcutter that’s after her own tomboyish heart, but Valerie is betrothed to Henry (Max Irons), son of a prosperous blacksmith who’s no where near as dark and dashing as Peter.

But in this village – “So small barely anyone remembers the name,” Valerie informs us – there’s more to the local colour than who the prettiest girl in the land is going to marry. Nope, this town is haunted by a werewolf, whom the villagers have been satiating for two generations with an animal sacrifice every full moon. Ritual goes off the rails though when Valerie’s sister is found dead, killed by the wolf. With that it’s pitchforks and torches time as the men folk head off into the mountains for hunting season.

The fun doesn’t really get started until Father Solomon rolls into town. Played by Gary Oldman as a combination of Dr VanHelsing, Father Merrick and Col. Kurtz, Solomon arrives with an entourage of werewolf hunters and a giant copper elephant teapot torture device to help flush out the offending wolf. What are his credentials? “I killed wife!” he yells at anyone that doubts his resolve. She was also a werewolf.

Not that this is a simple monster/monster hunting story. Nope, there’s plenty of other intrigue as well like which one of the numerous villagers are suspect of being the werewolf, and why exactly Valerie is able to commune with the wolf when no one else can? It asks her to run away with him… like Peter. One the other hand, she glimpses its human eyes and sees they’re brown… like Henry’s. And what exactly is grandmother (Julie Christie) always doing skulking about?

For a sleepy little village plagued by a monster, this hamlet seems more like Melrose Place during Sweeps. But at least it’s beautifully realized. The film’s design is superb, with nary a flake of fake snow out of place in the beautifully created village by Tom Sanders. It reminded me very much of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow where there’s a very naturalistic yet artificially creepiness to the setting, which you can do when you build a medieval village to your specifications on a soundstage. Even with that there are several loving establishing shots of the mountain wilderness of British Columbia, where the movie was shot.

The technical specs of the film are amazing, I would expect nothing less, but that’s not a reason to see Red Riding Hood. Amanda Seyfried is pretty to look at, as are the two strapping lads that play her consorts, but really what kind of Hollywood movie would this be without pretty young things in the middle of the action? And for those of you expecting sparks in the vein of another Seyfried vehicle, Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, holster your guns, because aside from a brief instance of PG-13 rated “sensuality,” Red Riding Hood is pretty chaste.

The best part of the film for me was watching a talented group of actors each acting like they’re in an entirely different movie. Seyfried sometimes seems like she’s trying out for innocent bystander number two, Christie seems like she’s playing the Cheshire Cat, or even the proverbial cat that caught canary at that, and even creepy Gary Oldman would be creeped out by the level of creepiness Father Solomon is capable of exuding.

Meanwhile, even actors in smaller parts get a chance to shine. Christine Willes plays Henry’s grandmother and has a Joan Crawford “no wire hangers” vibe when she tells her perspective future granddaughter-in-law that she’s the prettiest of all. And Michel Hogan (Battlestar Galactica) proves again that whether he’s talking about frakking toasters or carrying around a wolf head on a stick, nobody does gristle better than he does.

Despite all that though, the improbable combination of acting styles, the immaculate décor of the set design and the conventions of 700-year-old legend known to everyone, there’s something quite entertaining about Red Riding Hood. It’s not a perfect film and its intentions are not exactly clear, but it’s a breeze to get through. Although not to Grim Brother specs, this fairytale provides a good time at the movies, whether you end up loving it or hating in the end. I have a feeling that there will be plenty of either.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Rating: ***1/2

Who would have guessed that one of the most divisive films of our age would be a tawdry, but chaste, tale of a love triangle between a high school aged human, vampire and werewolf? The sheer vitriol against these movies, and the books from whence they came, boggles the mind considering the content. Is Twilight cheesy? Yes. A bit old fashioned? Sure. Do its young actors sometimes confuse making a frowny face with actual emoting? Most definitely yes.

But for so-called Twi-hards, the haters don’t matter and even they realize that the movie they’re so invested in isn’t exactly melodrama par excellence like, let’s say, Gone with the Wind. There were more than a few chuckles at some of the cheesier bits of New Moon at the press screening, which had a healthy mix of hardcore fans in there with the press. So how do you tell that Eclipse is a marked improvement over its predecessors? Fewer laughs.

So far as Twilight movies go, Eclipse is sharper, tighter and just all around better than the first two films in the franchise, but this could be for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the source material. Stephanie Meyer’s third novel set in the Twilight universe saw grand improvements in terms of character development and building rising action.

Then there’s the film’s director, David Slade. The filmmaker’s last tango with vampires, the bloody good comic adaptation 30 Days of Night, couldn’t have been further from the “Parents Don’t Just Understand” vampires’ world of Twilight. You know there’s a change a-coming when the opening scene in Eclipse takes place on a rain soaked street in Seattle where a boy is tormented, mawed and left to die in agony on a pier. Anyone walking in unfamiliar with the novel may think for a minute that some one got chocolate in their peanut butter.

But soon things settle down to what you’d expect from Twilight. Bella (Kristen Stewart), being a modern young woman struggles with the notion of marrying her vampire beau Edward (Robert Pattinson) as condition of him turning her into a vampire. At the same time she’s struggling to keep her friendship with werewolf pal Jacob (Taylor Lautner), which isn’t easy for the boy considering that his crush’s boyfriend is one of his tribe’s sworn enemies.

But much of the hate is put aside when Bella comes under threat from an army of new born vampires under the sway of the vengeful Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard effectively, but not convincingly replacing Rachelle Lefevre). Twi-haters may actually like this aspect of the film, seeing what they would consider more “real” vampires in this VINO (Vampire In Name Only) movie. The story culminates in what’s actually a pretty decently executed fight scene between the new born vamps and the werewolves/good vampires super-team.

Also stronger is some of the acting and dialogue. Edward’s self-referential pondering as to whether or not Jacob owned a shirt got a few (in context) laughs, but not as many as this uncomfortable version of “The Talk” between Bella and her normally stoic dad Charlie (Billy Burke). The three main actors – Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner – continue to show improvement and comfort in their parts, but there may still be an irritant factor for those who show up to the film under less voluntary circumstances. Instead, focus on the impish charm of Ashley Greene’s Alice and the cool dignity of Jackson Rathbone’s Jasper, who I believe gets more lines in Eclipse than in the first two movies combined.

Still, no matter what a critic has to say, members of Team Edward and Team Jacob will swoon for their respective namesakes, while Team Death-to-Bella will just come out to throw salt in people’s good time. Perhaps endurance when it comes to dealing with all things Twilight depends on one’s own ability to put themselves in the mind of a 13-year-old girl. If nothing else, Eclipse is entertaining whether you genuinely enjoy it, or genuinely enjoy ragging on it.

But for those interested in the movie itself, Eclipse is answer and antidote to typical male-driven summer blockbusters. Perhaps that’s the ultimate conundrum of Twilight. Without robots, wizards or superheroes it’s captured the imagination (and money) of so many. Much like the story’s vampire protagonist, who point blank refuses to have sex with his girlfriend until they’re married, there’s something old-fashioned in Twilight, and that seems to be okay to the female demographic that made this franchise a billion dollars.

So to all the haters out there, do yourself a favour and save that hate for things that matter, like British Petroleum or Soccer World Cup. And to Twi-hards everywhere, enjoy what is the best Twilight yet with aplomb. As if you haven’t already.

The Wolfman

Rating: **

Mere words can’t express my disappointment after seeing Joe Johnston’s remake of The Wolfman, but we’ll give it a try just the same.

As it goes, the remake of the classic Universal monster movie starring Lon Chaney, Jr began in earnest some time ago. Universal brought in Johnston, director of Jumanji, Jurassic Park III and The Rocketeer, which despite opinions to the contrary, is da bomb. (Jennifer Connelly in white satin and 1940s glam… Nuff said.)

So you’ve got a man of vision in the director’s chair, good. Next is to get a master make-up man to do the effects, and you can’t get much better than Rick Baker. Baker knows werewolves too having created them for The Howling, An American Werewolf in London and Wes Craven’s Cursed, so there really was no better choice. Next, there’s the actors, and if I told you I had Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving signed to my movie, you’d bet your brains out on it. Especially if it was an R-rated, period werewolf movie designed by Rick Baker and directed by Joe Johnston.

So where did this thing go off the tracks? Excellent question. One gets the impression that there were not only significant reshoots before the film was released, but there were also significant rewrites before/during the initial shoot. Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, a stage actor who’s suddenly compelled to come home when his brother is – What’s the word? – massacred. Now Larry is either one of those stiff-upper-lip guys or he just doesn’t care because, boy, I have never seen the wholesale slaughter of loved one have less of an impact on a guy.

But maybe it’s the company. Hopkins does his best Wilford Brimley impression to play the senior Talbot and as part of the effect ends up chewing a lot of scenery while he’s at it. Apparently there’s a lot of unresolved tension between Larry and his father, but what precisely that tension is can be a matter of debate after the movie. Where tension’s lacking though is Lawrence’s relationship with his brother’s finance played by Blunt, which seems practically non-existent on an emotional level. The emotional arc for Lawrence is pretty much, “Oh, you’re my brother’s fiancé? You seem cool, I guess. Maybe we can hook up later when, you know, it’s not creepy.”

Which brings us to Hugo Weaving as Scotland Yard detective Abberline, who is based on the real-life Frederick Abberline who was an accomplished and decorated inspector most notably remembered as being the man in charge of investigating the Jack the Ripper murders. Special note is made of this inference in Lawrence’s first encounter with Abberline and it had all the comfort of one of those TV crossovers where a character from another show is introduced to the characters in the one you’re watching. But if the intro is wince worthy, it would be worthwhile if Weaving was given something interesting to do, but he’s not.

Now you’ll have noticed that aside from the obvious, I have yet to talk about the werewolves in the werewolf movie. In an act of sheer audacity (for modern filmmaking), Johnston made his wolfman nearly all practical, only the transformations were handled with computer effects. The result was awesomely old school, but still, the wait between werewolf incidents could be excruciating. But that’s what happens when the main story is melodramatic pabulum, and I know the movie is set in the 19th century but it doesn’t have to read that way.

Saying that though implies that the movie is read at all. It seems to indicate there may be such a thing as insight or subtext between the lines. Like what was the deal with the gypsy village? And how did the senior Talbot manage to evade detection as a werewolf for so long? (Oh relax, it barely qualifies as a spoiler.) The film seems to jump from plot point to plot point with little fidelity, as if someone were trying to make the transitions between werewolf sequences as streamlined as possible. After all, they know what you people came to see and it wasn’t plot or character development.

I can’t say that The Wolfman was a supreme disappointment, just exceptionally underwhelming. There were some ingredients in place from a technical perspective that could have really made this sing, but like past efforts to revive Universal’s classic monsters, the effort seems to suffer from too much emphasis on how it looks rather than trying to capture the magic that made those movies a source of inspiration and enjoyment for moviegoers in the 1930s. It’s the fear of the unknown, the fear of being out of control and the fear of seeing the monster in the mirror. The only fear this Wolfman seemed to have was fear of coherence, lest somebody actually be able to enjoy this film despite all its self-actualized faults.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Rating: ***

Let me begin by saying that I hated the book New Moon, but the movie that came from it isn’t half bad. It certainly had its moments, undoubtedly thanks to a lot of diligent pruning and cutting by screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg. This film’s biggest improvement over the first Twilight is that it’s able to make the fantastic world of vampires and werewolves seem that much more tenable. Like so many films before it, you can truly allow yourself the benefit of believing in an underworld unknown to we mere mortals. On the other hand, New Moon in spite of itself features some laugh out loud moments, and I don’t mean comic relief.

To the credit of filmmaker Chris Weitz, New Moon isn’t the complete disaster it should have been. I think when it came to the first Twilight film, to achieve any genuine feel it managed to convey for the most part, was because of the skill of director Catherine Hardwicke in letting teenagers feel and act like teenagers. To me, some of the best moments in Twilight were the scenes where our heroine Bella (Kristen Stewart) was arriving at her new school for the first time, struggling as she found herself the centre of attention, getting awkward when Cupid’s arrow strikes revealing the vision that is Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). But then we launched into the sparkle vampire thing and I don’t know what happened.

Actually, I don’t have a huge problem with the sparkling in sunlight vamps, to me it was an interesting twist on why vampires didn’t like sunlight while still allowing them to come out during the daytime. At the very least it avoids any kind of conceit like, say, magic rings, and yes I’m looking at you Vampire Diaries. The point is that there’s a lot of hate out there about the Twilight books and the films upon which are based. Would it be remiss to say that Twilight is the most polarizing book since the Bible? Sacrilege, you say. Truly, I feel, the books are harmless in terms of affecting the scary status of the vampire in horror lore. Let teen girls have Twilight because there’s always Near Dark or 30 Days of Night if you like a truly sadistic vamp tale.

But this isn’t quite a vampire movie. If Twilight was Edward’s time to shine – pun intended – then New Moon belongs to Taylor Lautner’s Jacob. As you might recall from part one, Jacob is Bella’s childhood friend who in New Moon learns of his true family heritage, literally finding the wolf within. Lautner wears the mantle of romantic lead much easier than Pattinson did through much of Twilight, but even Mr. Sexiest Man Alive manages to find some semblance of character outside squinting and pouting. Stewart graciously elevates Bella beyond the whiny mess she becomes in the New Moon book and manages to find some real emotion.

What’s frustrating is that when New Moon gets 60 per cent of the way to achieving some semblance of good drama, it does something luridly melodramatic, like having Edward appear like a dead Jedi, warning Bella away from danger after he leaves her high, dry and broken-hearted. Actually there’s a lot about Pattinson, despite his status as pretty boy du jour, that provoked laughter, even from his target audience amongst the young ladies. In his first scene, Pattinson strolls across the school parking lot, in slow motion of course, as a slight wind blows his for that perfect cover of a romance novel looked of unabashed ruggedness. Somehow, I don’t think parody was the intention of that shot and the same girls that cheered the opening title now laughed heartily with the rest of us.

But if Pattinson struggles at first his game steps up in a big way when the vampire royal family the Volturi arrive on the scene during the film’s climax. The sheer delight that Michael Sheen exhibits playing Aro makes me think that he should get some kind of spin-off deal, even Dakota Fanning as his sidekick becomes a welcome addition as a vampire sadist with pain-inducing powers. If Edward’s brooding is too much, then there’s the Volturi to look forward to, but their time on screen is ultimately too brief. After the Volturi, the film seems to sputter and close coming circle, once again Bella wants Edward to vamp her up and Edward offers a gaggingly silly counterproposal.

There was some unintended silliness that I could have done without, but overall New Moon was a satisfying diversion, for me at least, and undoubtedly for its loyal group of teenage and tweenage fans. Definitely though, it’s an improvement over Twilight, love it or hate it. Oh, how I wonder what mysteries await in Eclipse. Time to hit the books again, I think.

Trick ‘R Treat

Rating: ***1/2

After years of waiting, the fan-favourite ode to October 31st has finally made its way to DVD shelves everywhere, and the important question now to contemplate is just what the heck took so long to get such a solid flick in the hands of the general public? Call it timing issues, constantly running up against the Saw juggernaut; call it spite on the part of the studio after Superman Returns (co-written by Trick ‘R Treat’s director Michael Dougherty and directed Trick’s producer Bryan Singer) under-performed at the box office. But whatever you do, don’t say it’s because this movie isn’t worthwhile, because it is really worth your while. Dougherty has created what’s possibly the greatest holiday special to be made in some time, and that ain’t easy.

Trick ‘R Treat is a kind of anthology movie that tells four different, interceding tales that all take play in one small Ohio town on Halloween night. Like a master of ceremonies, little Sam, a cherub in a scarecrow-like burlap suit, runs from scene-to-scene to oversee the mayhem and collect some penny candy in a pillow sack. He appears in all the stories: the one about the young kids playing a prank on a friend, the virginal college student looking for her first, the creepy old man facing his demons, and the somewhat sadistic school principal teaching his son a lesson. Naturally, all these stories have twists to them; some surprising, some suspected, but always entertaining.

Dougherty is adept at plumbing the holiday trappings and manages a pretty reasonable balance between adult-oriented scares and thrills that appeal to the kid in all of us. Most importantly though, Dougherty captures the atmosphere nicely; one can practically hear the leaves crunch beneath their feet as they march from one house to the next in search of candy. The cinematography puts an emphasis on the fall colours red and orange, and makes them pop out against the seemingly endless night the film takes place in. One scene takes place in a fog-filled quarry where a wrecked school bus rises from the bog like some sort of hideous tombstone. Thoughts of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and art director Rick Heinrich’s fine work on Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow do not go a miss.

But if there’s an unbearable weakness to these sorts of movies it’s that there’s always a weak link, there’s always one story that doesn’t connect like the rest. I’ll leave it for you to decide which one of the stories doesn’t work, but needless to say there’s something here for all tastes and it’s guaranteed that some stories will appeal more than others. There’s the subtle black comedy of the tale of the Principal, played with tremendous sinister relish by Dylan Baker. The kids’ tale about their search for a ghost bus that once ferried special ed kids that were killed by their driver when the bus went into the quarry has that spooky air of urban legend and lets the movie have a chance to play with zombies. Also recognized for its cleverness is the story of Anna Paquin’s Red Riding Hood, and the interesting spin Dougherty puts on that tale that’s too good to ruin.

The film’s not without its issues, both on a technical level and a literal one, like the use of “based on” comic panels in the opening and closing credits. I’m not sure what it is about filmmakers that make them sometimes think that the simple fact that they had an artist make up some faux comic pages fives gives them, and their film, added street cred, but it doesn’t (always) work. As more the technical problems, some of the segues and the way the stories were intercut were sometimes weak, and there were times when the film seemed to struggle with its own self-identity (probably from studio-demanded cuts for a more commercial friendly PG-13 rating). But I’ve seen enough direct-to-video crap to know when something truly deserves to be buried on the video shelf, and Trick ‘R Treat is not one of those.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Rating: **1/2

After being under-whelmed by Underworld, and downright bored by Underworld Evolution, I was prepared to treat Rise of the Lycans with only a passing interest. Low and behold though, this rather dullard looking franchise took a left turn into actual engagement. Amazingly, it only took three films for the Underworld folks to find even half the potential for their horror/action/S&M fetish combo platter, but it says something more that even at its best, the Underworld films deliver marginal thrills. While the execution has substantially greater levels of gusto, the core problem with the series remains the same: it borrows too heavily from its genre forbearers to be taken seriously.

This Underworld takes a detour to the distant past and reintroduces us to minor faces of the franchise’s past. (So no tight-leather clad Kate Beckinsale in this one boys. Sorry.) In a medieval castle, the vampire lord Viktor (Bill Nighy) has bred half-breed Lycans that can transform back to a human form, the first being his favourite “pet” blacksmith Lucian (Michael Sheen). What Viktor doesn’t know though is that Lucian’s loyalties is not out of a slave’s gratitude for some modicum of freedom, but because Lucian is in love with Viktor’s daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra), and she with him. But Viktor’s anger and pettiness over the affair spurs Lucian to revolution; leading his werewolf brothers in a rebellion against their vampire masters.

So yes, it’s 90 minutes of film taken from about five lines of dialogue in the script of the original. Firstly, Rise of the Lycans suffers from “prequelitis,” where any chance of a compelling story coming out of the antics on screen is foiled by the fact that we already know where it’s all going. If the appeal of doing a prequel has any merit, it’s that you get a chance to flesh out the details more and really develop characters and relationships that might have suffered in the originating chapter for whatever reasons. One marked area of improvement is the romance angle. Sheen and Mitra make a much more believable couple than Beckinsale and her werewolf beau Scott Speedman ever did. Granted, that accomplishment didn’t require much of a push to make the win.

But if there’s a real benefit to this movie, it’s that the central characters are played by two distinguished and talented British thespians. The right actor can take B-movie drivel and remind you that a film can be more than a two-bit, RPG rip-off with delusions of X-Men. Unfortunately though, this is not the case with Rise of the Lycans. There’s something about Nighy, right down to the way he’s lighted, that screams Disney villain; from his skeletal face bones to his scenery chewing delivery. Sheen comes off better and certainly seems commanding enough to be believed as the George Washington of the werewolves. However, this doesn’t stop the movie from being too terribly shallow, and there was definitely room for improvement in terms of how some of the relationships played out.

And still, everything is shot in that horrid, blue gel that makes everything look so fake and staged. There are times the entire production seems more like an elaborate LARP scenario than a movie, just because of the pedigree of the actors sometimes makes you do a double take as to how they were compelled to be involved in this in the first place. Working in favour of this Underworld though is that it seems to truly embrace its core idea, and it seems that the movie’s got its act together more here than in the previous films. But core improvements don’t erase the fact that this entire series feels like it was ripped off, and it’s as uninspired now as it was when the first film was released way back when. Perhaps the makers of Underworld can take a cue from other horror franchises: just remake already.