Underworld: Evolution

Since the first Underworld got its own entry (found here), I figure it’s only fair to give the same treatment to the sequel.  Afterall, this series is to me as Star Wars or The Godfather is for others.  It’s an entire world you can lose yourself in and expand past what is shown to you on the screen.  Anyway…  On to the review…(there shall be spoilers, as usual…if you want to see this thing and be surprised…don’t read on until you have done so).

Since I work right across the street from the theater Underworld 2 (which is what I prefer the movie had been called, honestly) was being shown in, I planned on going as soon as work was over.  At 1:30 p.m., there I sat.  The previews were almost all crap…various terrible looking horror movies, including When a Stranger Calls, which looks like a parody commercial in places because the acting is so bad that it almost seems intentional.  The only preview that made me want to see something was for UltraViolet, a cool looking action movie from the same guy that made Equilibrium. 

Underworld 2 starts with a flashback to the year 1202.  The vampires are trailing a particularly vicious Lychan named William, brother of Markus (a vampire), both the sons of Alexander Corvinus, the first true immortal.  Markus wants his brother spared, Viktor (the authoritarian leader of the vampires) wants William caputred and hidden away forever.  Viktor gets his way, and Markus is angry.  Flash to present day.  The movie picks up in what appears to be the immediate aftermath of the first movie.  Selene and Michael are on the run, trying to hide from anyone who may be tailing them.  Kraven (the scheming second in command of the vampires) goes to the coven house throne room to kill Markus, thus leaving himself in charge, but Markus has already awakened.  He has absorbed the blood of the dead Lychan that dripped into his coffin and become the second Vampire-Lychan Hybrid (Michael, of course, being the first).  Markus kills Kraven easily (yay!  Kraven was played by a horrible actor…nearly ruined the first movie with his sucktitude), and burns down the coven house after killing all within.  He then tracks down Selene to learn where his brother William is locked up.  It turns out that Viktor killed Selene’s family because they knew where William was kept, as her father had built the crypt.  Selene was allowed to live because she was too young to remember.  Meanwhile, a mysterious old man takes the bodies of Viktor, Lucian, and Amelia to examine them.  He cuts open Viktor’s torso and removes a large metal circle.  Markus is seeking this circle, and also the pendant Lucian had once worn around his neck, which now belongs to Michael.  It turns out that these are the two pieces to the key that will free William Corvinus.  Selene and Michael track down the "official historian" of the war, an exiled vampire, and he sets them up a meeting with the mysterious old man from earlier.  He is revealed to be Alexander Corvinus himself…the first true immortal.  As he and Selene talk and argue, Markus attacks.  He kills his father, and also kills Michael.  Selene fights Markus off and tries to revive Michael…to no avail.  She then goes to Alexander, who tells her to drink his blood before he dies, thus making her a different kind of hybrid.  Taking Michael’s dead body with her, she goes with Alexander’s private Special Forces group to fight Markus and stop him from releasing William.  They arrive too late, of course, so now must defeat both monsters.  Just as Selene is surrounded by the transforming soldiers (William turned them to Lychans), Michael comes back to life and dives in to save her.  A tag team match of sorts ensues.  William is killed by Michael, who rips the top of his head off at the jaws, and Selene kills Markus by knocking him into the still-spinning rotors of the crashed helicopter.  As the sun rises, and Selene is able to stay in it thank to her new powers, the movie ends.

Basically, I thought it was a really lame follow up to a great movie.  The good things first, though…

Markus was really cool.  Since he had been a vampire first, his hybrid look was that of a giant bat, complete with wings.  I thought that was a really nice touch, to enhance the characteristics of which creature he’d been first.  The fight scene in the back of the truck between Markus and Michael was very well done, as even Selene got involved while driving.  Kate Beckinsdale gave a fantastic performance.  She seemed to put her heart and soul into this movie, which makes sense because her husband, Len Wiseman, was the director.  So the family had a lot invested in the project.  The opening flashback was very nice.  Seeing all the elder vampires alive at once, and in full battle mode against a village of Lychans, was very cool.  It was good to see Ameila (played by Zita Gorog) do something besides just walk around and then die…though she still doesn’t speak (that I can remember).  You’d think that she’d be given more to do, considering she’s supposed to be on the same level as Viktor and Markus.  But oh well.

Unfortunately, the bad things far outnumber the good…

The story was just kind of crappy.  There was no real motivation given for why and what Markus really hopes to accomplish, aside from a five second monologue to Alexander before he kills him.  Which brings me to another point.  Why waste using Alexander Corvinus now?  I think that’s a mistake.  With him dead, there’s no one left to fight.  All the vampire elders and all the Lychan leaders are dead.  The first of each are dead.  And the first immortal is dead.  What’s left that could possibly be challenging?  Nothing.  Basically just trying to end the unrest within each clan that is sure to result from having the power structure destroyed.  BORING!  Michael and Selene’s romance is exaggerated on for really the first time.  In the original, it’s barely a glimmer.  You can see they like each other, but in this movie it’s full on, including the over-long love scene (which makes me wonder if Underworld 3 would end up as "what will Selene and Michael’s baby be like").  And don’t even get me started on Michael’s "death."  The justification used for him coming back to life was a short speech Selene gives in the first ten minutes of the movie.  Something to the effect of, "There’s never been a hybrid before.  You’re powers could be limitless, but we just don’t know."  She might as well have said "Deus Ex Machina!" because her lines were repeated as we saw Michael come back to life.  I saw it coming, of course, as soon as it was shown that his body was in the helicopter with her on the trip to the final battle.  "Fuck…he’s not staying dead," I said to myself at that moment.  And the whole thing with Selene standing in the sun in the end just screamed out to me, &qu

ot;Blade!"  In fact, I said, "daywalker," which was a line from one of the trailers for Blade II or Blade Trinity (I can’t remember which).  Just lame.

And that pretty much sums it up.  Lame.  Like I said to Will when I told him about it, "It was…just…very not really any good."  The plot was thin, the action was okay, and the Underworld universe was pretty much destroyed.  Not much good to come of it.  And yet, a short monologue at the end left hints of another sequel (the "clan unrest" angle I mentioned earlier).  But this could’ve also very well been the end of the franchise…kind of like how Blair Witch 2:  Book of Shadows killed that franchise, I’m afraid Evolution could do the same…

Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox:  "Pimp Juice" by Nelly, "Stricken" by Disturbed, and "First Day Out" by ICP

Sayonara.