Underworld Awakening

I waited to see this movie because it was so short on running time that I could not feel good about paying the same price for movies at least 30 mins longer or more that are just as enjoyable on the big screen. That is just the practical side of my ideas about spending my money on films.I can only hope that this "movie" which is only 1:22 not including the credits which are almost 10 minutes long with at least three different hairdressers listed in three different locations on the credits roll just for Ms. Beckinsale. Whoa, that's a lot of hair manipulation for someone with a short hair style. I wonder how many "Trinity" had with the change from greased down to short and scruffy? And it's not just that, but it seems that there are literally three entire sets of credits from the Gaffers and Grips to the CGI & FX makeup teams. I was also surprise that Ms. Beckinsale had not one dime of her own money into this project since the franchise has been a successful one.But now onto the movie itself... WARNING WARNING - SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!As I said - I can only hope this is a long teaser for a new cycle of movies with or without Ms. Beckinsale. She is starting to get along in years and playing an immortal character that does not age or get more "mature looking" has got to be considered if the stories are to continue as well if Scott Speedman is no longer going to be the other leading immortal character of Michael Corvinus (sp?)The story shows Selene getting blown apart from her man Michael by some sort of UV grenade by the mortal police forces in the beginning. We next see her frozen (tastefully not naked although very obviously nude in the container) with very well place fog and other obstacles, escaping with some help from a cyro-freezer after what turns out to be 12 years into a world without Lycans, and very few Vampires. It's told that she (Selene) is labeled Patient #1 as it blares across the warning system. And that she has "some sort of" special connection and link with patient #2. It's announced that both can each see through the eyes of the other. Naturally we the audience thinks it is Michael who is patient #2. But it's actually Selene's 12 year old daughter who is a human-hybrid mostly looking like Michael with the blue/black eyes and nearly black skin color change. She's never been outside, never fed as a Vampire, etc. But she knows she's Mom when she sees her and vice-versa.Those familiar with the first two movies which of the three are the only ones with Selene in them and time line is from the beginning of movie 1 thru the end of movie 2. One long storyline which I thought worked very well. I'm just trying to keep with Selene/Michael for this is long enough already.Here are just a few of the many things I have a problem with in this movie...1) Vampires are "dead" beings, they cannot have children - yet Selene has a child during her 12 years of being captured and frozen.2) Michael did "die" in the middle of movie 2 but Selene fed him blood that she had after being given the 100% "pure blood" of the first of both sides of the immortal creatures in this storyline "Grandpa" Corvinus himself (such a nice guy for an immortal who did nothing except have more money than can be counted, hire very loyal people to "clean up" Vampire and Lycan "messes", etc. and allowed himself to be killed by his Vampire son.) which gave her enough strength to beat the first Vampire ever who would be the strongest as in this storyline age equals abilities and strength as well as the blood it comes from....However, since Michael died, he might have been brought back, but he was brought back in the Vampire way of becoming UNdead. Not alive as he found out when trying to eat solid food which caused him great physical pain - this was shown in the first movie when he was just Lycan. So - how can two dead people produce a child??? This is one BIG problem for me and nothing was even mentioned about it in this movie.Then we see the Vampires are actually far worse off than the Lycans, because the Lycans kept themselves hidden during the 1st & 2nd "Purge" as the movie calls the human eradication of all Lycans and Vampires. Really?? That must have been one bunch of sissy Vampires with no elders to lead them to be decimated to near extinction by humans. Same for the Lycans or so everyone thought, but nope...the Lycans in the great tradition of Lucian. Sneaky and seemingly much smarter when it comes to staying alive and powerful. Now we have Dinosaur sized Lycan due to years of experimentation by the Lycans who were thought to be humans using the blood of Selene, of daughter and yep - you guessed the ending...Michael. The first Lycan Vampire hybrid which would make him extremely powerful, but the daughter has BOTH original Corvinus blood which makes her immune to Daylight, as well as Silver, and pretty much everything else that would destroy typical Vampires and Werewolves.So now we have the ultimate undead family of good hearted, but very fierce, Uber-Vampire Selene aka Mom, 1st hybrid Lycan that all other Lycans were supposed to yield to as shown in the ending of the first movie, and the Uber being with everything on the positive side for being powerful with not one single weakness...Mama & Daddy's little girl. And with all that, it's very possible that she is also a triple threat - the daughter I think is mostly plain ole human on top of the duality of being a hybrid Lycan/Vampire. One older doctor Vampire Lady was looking for her original bite marks and couldn't find any. Of course not, she wasn't turned, she was...born??? How exactly did that happen, or is this a test-tube kinda thing?? Again...no idea from this movie.And all this with no real explanations about most things that had happened in 12 years of Cryo-Sleep (hmmm - "Ripley" was asleep for 57 years), lots of very good FX, some excellent fight scenes and very excellence kill shots and other well done gore FX. Now what?Yes - all that I typed just to sum up what this movie only put into motion with an ending that certainly screams...NEXT MOVIE COMING UP!! But who, where, what, why, etc., etc. It's all set in the near future, but if Selene's last thoughts were of getting the Vampires back to the top of the food chain and powerful and a collective nation...Doesn't this seem a bit much like Blade 2 or 3 except that the Vampires are the "good guys"?Did this help or just make everything much more confusing?

Love it

no comment

One of the most entertaining things about the first two UNDERWORLD films is that they were actioners through and through. They didn't bother with the "reality" of the world; They just gave us the situation: There were Vampires who all dressed like they went to a fetish boutique, and there were Werewolves aka Lycans who were living like the animals of their namesake and both of these mythical creatures had been at war for centures. We followed the adventures of Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a "death-dealer" vampire who fell in love with Michael (Scott Speedman), a human who became a hybrid lycan-vampire. Over the course of their forbidden love, they killed both vampires and lycans (well, in all fairness, Selene does 99% of the killing; and despite Michael's supposed "power", he barely kills anything) and became hunted by both. Under the direction of Len Wiseman, who did UNDERWORLD and UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION, the story was bloody, wild, exciting, sexy and darned entertaining. Then we got UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS, directed by the great production designer Patrick Tatopolis, and that was a big mess of a prequel designed to shed more light on why the war started and to elaborate on the characters of Lucien (a lycan) and Sonja (a vampire) and their forbidden love. That film was almost unwatchable, and not because it was so bad, but because the film's lighting in almost every scene is so incredibly dark it looks like they shot it entirely in a black hole.Now we have UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING directed by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, a Swedish filmmaking duo, and this is their first major studio release. U: A begins with an energetic and shocking opening as humans have discovered the existence of vampires and werewolves and are in the process of exterminating them all. Gone are the days of the fun, comic-booky adventures of orgiastic violence and almost campy intrigue and now we have a film that is trying to hold a mirror up to the human condition. Words like "Purge" and "Cleansing" are used as Humanity bands together to wipe out these "sub-human" monsters. Selene and Michael are trying to escape to safety, but these jack-booted kill squads find them and...The next thing we know is that Selene is in a research lab of the AntiGen Corporation hanging upside-down and naked in cryogenic stasis but is being released by something referred to as Subject Two. Selene, once released, finds all of her old clothes (the latex skintight bodysuit, the cool boots, the leather bustier) just being stored in a glass container. Before you can say "suspension of disbelief", she's back to blue-eyed business killing everybody she sees in order to escape and also to find Michael. What she does find is an ally in the impossibly handsome David (Theo James, all cheekbones) and the fact that she's been in stasis for 12 years. We also meet the antagonist, a very Mengele-type big-shot doctor, Jacob Lane (the usually terrific Stephen Rea, trying desperately to keep his face out there), who seems determined to make sure that the government and his own private army get Selene and Subject Two back. We then find that Subject Two is a 12-year-old girl (what a coincidence!) named Eve, who is a hybrid, like Michael (another coincidence!). I won't spoil who she is, but Selene suddenly has a really big reason to protect her. In the midst of all this, David's father Thomas (the great Charles Dance), the leader of a nearby vampire coven, looks to run and hide, and his headstrong son looks to stand their ground and fight against the humans. Then we get a Hulk-sized lycan, a vampire-friendly cop (Michael Ealy), and a really fun final act where all the serious stuff goes out the window in favor of watching Selene blast her way through impossible odds with her twin machine pistols.While the previous films haven't been really big on character development, they did slow down enough to allow some of the newer characters to breathe life into those characters. This is another in the long line of "We can't make the characters relatable, so at least we'll make them blow stuff up" action films, like the masters of that kind of cinema (Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich) but with a tenth of the budget they get. My three biggest problems with the film are these:First is that Marlind and Stein seem to be combining the styles of both Wiseman and Tatopolis without any real style of their own. The film does have some pretty fun gags and setpieces like the Wiseman films do, but the film also looks really dark, which may be less of a stylistic choice and more of a symptom of the standard sub-standard lousy 3D post-conversion.Second, the entire cast, with maybe the exception of Beckinsale, seems to be cashing a check here. They don't really do anything interesting or have anything interesting to do other than stand around and glare occasionally. Becks (that's what I call her) knows that this franchise is built around her and she needs to be on her game. The rest of the cast seems to be sleep-walking. And was Wes Bentley just in the neighborhood when they were filming? Because that was a waste of talent and he's certainly not recognizable enough to be a "cameo". That was just bizarre.Third, and perhaps the biggest turn-off, is the injection of unnecessary allegorical storytelling that's too much of a reminder of reality to really allow for the same kind of popcorn-munching entertainment that the first two films had going for them. While the first two films were not the breeziest pieces of entertainment, they never took themselves too seriously. With AWAKENING, there's the blasts of violence and energy to the film, but then it's weighed itself down with the persecution of vampires and lycans by humans, some of whom have an interest in creating a more "superior" race. Of course, a film with four different screenwriters (one of them being Wiseman himself and another being J. Michael Straczynski, who is best-loved as creating the TV program BABYLON 5, and who is most-hated for really screwing up Spider-Man during his run on the comic book), someone is bound to trip over someone else's ideas. It seems like each writer wrote about 30 pages of the script and then handed it to another writer with a completely different style wanting to tell a completely different story. if you watch the film, you may notice that the tone shifts about seven times throughout the runtime. The allegory within the film is absolutely without any kind of merit since the films themselves were able to sustain themselves simply on the conceit of Vampires vs Werewolves.That being said, the film is pretty entertaining once you get past all the heavy-handedness. Becks continues to rock the outfit VERY well, and while her tone is much more serious here than it's been before, she plays it well. And to be fair to Marlind and Stein here, at least every shot of Selene walking away from the camera isn't shot at buttock-level, like Wiseman (Kate's husband) did constantly. The final act is a lot of fun, except there was one thing (a pretty important thing to be sure, as far as plot is concerned) that I was waiting for that just didn't come, presumably because they're saving it for a sequel.One more thing: The idea of the Hybrid being this all-powerful being was kind of stupid until this film, because we finally see a Hybrid doing a good amount of damage.It's not the most pleasant of universes to step in as far as the New World Order of UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING to visit, and you surely don't want to live there, but it's not an altogether terrible place to visit.

I’ve watched these movies since the dawn of its existence lol.

Underworld: Awakening has no bite and little to bark about. This is the pivotal moment of a franchise, four films in and you naturally question the legitimacy for another chapter to exist. In Awakening's case, it marks the gradual downfall for the eternal war of vampires and lycans. The two supernatural races have now been identified by the general population where a purge occurs to cull these diseases. During this time, Selene is frozen to which she escapes and investigates what happened during her time in cryogenic hibernation. Well...where to begin with this? The gothic production design flies away into the night and incomes the bland modern architecture of today's society. The consistent use of prosthetics and creature costumes have now been removed to make way for the over reliance of poor CGI, including horrific 3D gimmicky effects for the 1.76% of people who watch films in that visionary method. The low budget effects are incredibly noticeable during the transformation scenes and honestly belong in a SyFy film (no offence to that channel...ok slight offence). As the series progresses, the action increases and the depth of the oh so convoluted story decreases. It'll come to no surprise then that Awakening's plot is so thin that you couldn't see it with a pair of bright blue vampiric eyes. I can atleast mention that the action sequences are perfectly suitable and are entertaining to watch, particularly Selene obliterating werewolves at every angle whilst being shrouded in silver gas. Silly, but fun. Speaking of stupid scenes, there is a moment Selene shoots down an uncontrollable elevator with her dual submachine guns and exits the building without a scratch. Ten out of ten, A+, five stars! I am pleased to see Beckinsale back at the helm of the franchise, but with a disinterested supporting cast (particularly antagonist Stephen Rea) she couldn't quite save this bland mess. When the best moment is the credits song (told you Evanescence would be included at some point!) you know you have issues. But guess what!? They've set up another sequel! Yikes...

When I first watched 'Underworld Awakening', I found the movie to be so fast paced as to be so-so, pretty much the same as previous installments and rather forgettable. However, it improves on a second viewing. This time around, Selene-the ultimate vampire warrior-escapes after years of imprisonment to find herself in a new reality in which humans have discovered the existence of both Vampires and Lycans and are determined to wipe both species out. Enlisting the help of a small group of allies including her hybrid daughter, Selene struggles against a new breed of super opponents. In a short-85 minute film-everything is fast and furious and, not so say, rather confusing at times.The screen play by Len Wiseman and co contains a number of plot twists to keep you guessing although some of the developments stretch credibility more than just a little. Kate Beckinsale is, as usual, outstanding in the lead role. Good but not brilliant and similar in style to the more recent Wiseman/Beckinsale collaboration in the re-make of 'Total Recall'.Chris Allen is a Technical Author and writer with the following books available through Amazon:His latest crime novel:  Reality Shaper: The Quantum Detective Parallel Lifetimes The Beam of Interest: Taken by Storm Hypnotic Tales 2013: Some Light Some Dark Call of the Void: The Strange Life and Times of a Confused Person: 1Reality Shaper: The Quantum DetectiveParallel LifetimesThe Beam of Interest: Taken by StormHypnotic Tales 2013: Some Light Some DarkCall of the Void: The Strange Life and Times of a Confused Person: 1

Okay, for those of you still wondering what Underworld is all about... it's about a war between gun-totting fit female vampires in tight clothes and big ugly werewolves. So, if you've seen any of the first ones and liked them. Then watch this. You'll like this too.If, on the other hand, you think that women in spandex leaping off buildings while firing twin pistols at a monster that, deep down, you know has been added post production via computer is a pretty dumb premise - steer well clear.Luckily, I enjoyed the first three and loved this one too.Twelve years after Selene's last battle, humans have only gone and figured out that vamps and werewolves are real and hunted every last one of them down (apart from the ones they missed). Selene's been frozen in ice and studied, but, luckily, she gets woken up by... you'll have to watch the film and see. But, anyway, she's more than a little cranky and being prodded while in ice by humans in lab coats for over a decade. Luckily for her (and us I guess) she's defrosted right next to her famous black slinky costume and quickly puts it on and goes to express her disgust with humanity by a strongly-worded blog and some scathing tweets (only joking, she grabs the nearest knife and gun and starts piling up the bodies).Oh, and it's 3D this time. My only gripe. The 3D was even more pointless than every other 3D film that's designed purely to make you spend more money.From reading other reviews the general consensus is `more of the same.' And I can't add to that. It is. There's not a lot new here and some have criticised it for not adding to the overall story enough, but, what the hell, it's still fun and Kate Beckinsale is still gorgeous. They could make a film about vampires in spandex sitting there blowing their noses for ninety minutes and I'd watch it if Kate was in it. Biased. Yes, probably.Bottom line - this film may be the forth instalment of the Underworld franchise, but it's still head, shoulders and biteable neck over the Resident *yawn* Evil films.Go Kate!

After her absence from the third instalment of the Underworld saga, Kate's back in her rightful place - in a skin-tight black PVC cat suit and the lead role of Selene!Underworld Awakening (let's call it Underworld 4) was, in my opinion great fun. It moved the series on and was non-stop action all the way. Although there where of course similarities and familiar themes with the this and the first three films, for me it felt very different too. This is mainly because it felt like less time was devoted to weaving the fabric of a very complex story which spans centuries. In this film, it's all about the here and now - and it's a roller-coaster of a ride.Kate does what she does bets. Looks incredible and kicks arse! The lycens and special effects are amazing throughout and the the film ends leaving it wide open for the fifth instalment which, personally, I can't wait for. There was another reason (beside Beckinsale) I thoroughly enjoyed this movie though, and that's because I saw it in 3D... but don't worry, this disk plays in 2D as well if you don't have a 3DTV and player.It's the first 3D film I've seen that wasn't at the flicks and I was blown away (almost literally as flames and shrapnel came shooting from the screen!). The picture was crystal clear and had real depth and the 3D was used to great effect, really adding to the film. Kate's (or Selene's if your prefer) silver throwing stars came shooting out the screen at you, explosion seemed to engulf you in flames as they broke from the screen and the the air of my living room was thick with clouds of silver particles and silver dust grenades were let off during battles with werewolves.Underworld 4 was a thoroughly enjoyable romp and it was great to see Kate Beckinsale clad in her tight, shiny, PVC catsuit again after all these years... especially in 3D. My god. There's one bit where she's crouching down in a lift... if only I could have reached out and given her a pinch of her 3D bum! For me the film itself gets 4 stars - it's a good, fast paced action flick. But in 3D, it gets 5!

I like the Underworld movies. Vampires and werwolves fighting eachother a hot leading lady great action and cool special effects. Everything some other films including these type of monsters should be not slushy teen romance nonesense. Any way this is the fourth film in the series and is set years after the events of Evolution it picks up as Selene escaping from a laboritory and attempting to find Michael. This is the shortest of all the Underworld films. It is tight and fast paced and has a few surprises along the way. The action is hot and heavy as always as now the main threat for the vampires is actually human beings. The only downside of this movie is the same thing I see in so many new flms. It was shot in 3D. Now I dont have a 3D player and it plays fine on my PS3 but as happens so often you can tell where the 3D shots are. These are normally slow motion shots and while they are not really a problem they can get annoying.In closing this is a great edition to the franchise and I really enjoyed it. Its a put in movie that because of its length you don't need to commit an entire evening to a proper popcorn flick if you will. The reason for only four stars is that I think this is a fill in movie. It leaves many story threads to be followed up on other then that its really good and not a bad price if you like the others you will love this.