Underworld

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Vampires versus [werewolves]. Good ol'-fashioned goth fare. Intelligent action? flick, if one could conceive of such a thing; like Blade? but with (slightly) fewer fights, like DarkCity but with a dollop or three of gore. Rather decent plot, fair few twists; a few too many long FightScene?s for MoonShadow's taste - film could easily have been some 20-30 minutes shorter without losing much, in his opinion; but that's really the only major fault as far as MoonShadow is concerned, and the other TargetAudience? would probably say the opposite.

Same sort of thing as The Matrix, but a million billion times better: the plot of Underworld was crap and fairly predictable, but the plot of The Matrix was so crap it required not just new adjectives but the invention of a whole new language simly to even come close to expressing the crapness beyond crapness that it conjured up. Plus, KateBeckinsale, KeanuReeves?, well, really.

: Widely acclaimed as being a blatant VampireTheMasquerade ripoff. Though, as PennyArcade point out, Vtm is kinda a ripoff itself. Has the dubious distinction of having a custom made HalfLife mod to promote the game. So yes, ViolenceIsThePoint?. Although, reading that, I couldn't help wonder whether it was goths or Vampires who liked violence :) --Vitenka

Clearly not remotely ripped off from White Wolf. Having its head cut in half wouldn't even faze a White Wolf Vampire.

Excellent cinematography. Person in charge of cheekbone lighting deserves an oscar, or seven. Good acting (the head werewolf being one of the more charismatic villians in recent years). Good plot, but not an original background. The scene with the vampires decadently lounging around a manor was right out of every VampireTheMasquerade game ever played.

SeeAlso Blade. --Vitenka

: But do not see Blade II, even though it has a Goss in it.
: I liked Blade II. I thought the ninja vampire minions were fun.

The sequel... well, I guess it might be better than VanHelsing; though VanHelsing didn't try to take itself quite so seriously. Derek Jacoby can act rather well and makes a real effort to do the best he can with the script he is given, which is really quite refreshing when he comes in a third of the way into the film. People wear black leather and occasionally try to pull off the Equilibrium thing with the guns. There's Eastern European soldiers and lots of Polish (or possibly Czech) on the walls. You get to see Scott Speedman's reaction to a meal of pork, black bread and malosol cabbage, and Kate Beckinsdale makes a passable attempt at saying "Can I drive?" in Russian while dressed in black leather. They manage to avoid the Hollywood cliche of vehicles and flying machines exploding when they hit things. Um.. what else was there? Have I mentioned the leather yet? There's leather. - MoonShadow

The sequel is awful, and VanHelsing wasn't. It jettisons all the stuff which made the original at all watchable, apart from Kate Beckinsale. Oh well. --S?

I'll have to disagree about VanHelsing not being awful, I'm afraid; though I'll grant you it might be better than the Underworld sequel, and also that I'm probably entirely on my own in my opinion. - MoonShadow

: No, I also think VanHelsing was terrible. I also found it hilariously funny. The reason I think it was terrible is because I don't think it was supposed to be that funny, for those reasons.. - SunKitten

It wasn't awful. It began with villagers with flaming torches and pitchforks, how can anything like that be awful? Okay, you should ignore the bit at the end where they turn into CGI monsters fighting each other. If I wanted to watch CGI monsters fighting each other I'd play computer games. But apart from that I need only say: fully automatic crossbow. --S?

: Yeah, the pitchforks were good, I'll grant you; and the weaponry, and Q. Underworld 2 had some good bits, too. (All right, a good bit. Well, it had Derek Jacoby, anyway. It was good if you ignored the script coming over the audio track.) But, come on: the scenes where the seminude female vampire sits on a fence and screeches at the crowds of idiotic (you live in a country besieged by vampires for generations. You see big flying things in the air, what do you do? You wander out into the open and GAWP at them!) villagers for SEVERAL MINUTES..? - MoonShadow

Had to do that to line up the crossbow.

CategoryMovie