Review: Underworld (franchise)

Every now and then you feel the desire to celebrate mediocracy, and how better than to watch the leather-clad vampire franchise with the half-baked Romeo and Juliet subplot and the convoluted-to-the-point-of-incomprehensible backstory?

In all fairness, it's not a bad setup. Underworld has an eternal battle between vampires and werewolves, a female protagonist, a forbidden love story, Matrix-style fights, and a distinctive quasi-noir atmosphere in which everything is awash in a gloomy blue tint. All the pieces are in place for a stylish if not inventive franchise.

But if we're being honest: it's not very good. The mythology is garbled, the fight scenes are unexciting (what's the point of having preternatural creatures if you just arm them with guns?) and the characters utterly one-dimensional. Selene? I couldn't tell you three things about her.

Like I said: mediocre. But sometimes you just want to switch your brain off and watch attractive people in cat suits deliver ridiculous lines with a straight face while British thespians chew the scenery around them. In which case, these are the movies for you.

Underworld (2003)

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a vampire known as a Death Dealer, which means she's on the frontlines of an invisible war with creatures known as lycans*, one that takes place all over the world but entirely beneath the notice of humans.

*There's actually a decent reason as to why they're not just called werewolves, but we don't find that out until the third movie.

She has a personal stake in the war considering her family was killed by lycans centuries ago, on the same night she was turned into a vampire by the Elder known as Viktor (Bill Nighly). But during routine surveillance of a pack of lycans she realizes they're trailing what seems to be a normal human being for reasons she can't fathom.

Discovering that his name is Michael (Scott Speedman, best known as that guy from Felicity) and that he's a reclusive medical student, Selene gets the drop on both vampires and lycans alike by kidnapping him in search of answers.

Then ... stuff happens. That's the thing with all these movies: stuff keeps happening without any clear idea of why. I'm struggling to remember any coherent sequence of events in this film other than spouts of exposition interspersed with generic fight scenes with some really bad CGI werewolves.

I think it transpires that Michael is a descendant of the first immortal, a man called Alexander Corvinus. He was the father of three sons: the first vampire, the first werewolf, and – another one. For whatever reason, the third brother was genetically adaptable to both vampire and werewolf transmutations, a trait that was passed along through his bloodline.

Now the lycans are testing various candidates with vampire/werewolf blood, hoping to create a hybrid. If they can unlock this potential in Michael, he'll be like – a superweapon or something. I think?

The first (and perhaps greatest) problem with Underworld is that it's bogged down with convoluted world-building. If there was ever a need for a prologue that depicted some of the backstory onscreen, then this movie is missing it.

The story instead starts with a voiceover from Selene. Opening with an Exposition Dump is never good, especially when later events actually hinge on said exposition. As it happens, a pretty crucial plot-point is the fact that Lucien – the leader of the lycans – is presumed dead, only for this report to later be revealed as highly exaggerated.  

But because it's only mentioned in passing at the very beginning of the film, the twist loses any impact it might otherwise have had. By the time we're introduced to Lucien properly, there's a good chance you've totally forgotten that he's meant to have been killed off centuries ago.

There's also some stuff about how the three vampire Elders (Viktor, Amelia and Marcus) have a system in which only one of them is awake at any given time. The other two are in hibernation for centuries, though how this system works is as unclear as the reason why they do it in the first place.

Selene holds one of them (Viktor, the guy who turned her into a vampire) in high esteem, but it turns out there's a conspiracy afoot concerning how and why she was turned (which again, would have made a great flashback, but is related to us by an untrustworthy character which made me question its veracity for way too long).

Oh, there are two supporting characters: Kraven (Shane Brolly), an ambitious Death Dealer with plans for Selene, and Erika (Sophia Myles) in roles that don't have much purpose. The relationship between Erika and Selene had a glimmer of potential: despite not liking each other, they eventually end up on the same page – but it never goes any deeper than that.

Ultimately, Underworld is an example of style over substance, as demonstrated by the closest thing this franchise has to a signature scene: Selene escaping a hallway of lycans by pointing her guns downward and shooting a hole through the floor in a circle around her feet. There's lots of slow motion swishing of floor-length dusters, and every time a character stops moving they'll strike a dramatic pose – even while sitting.

***

It's always hard to articulate how/why some stories cause us to care and others don't. Is it the relatability of the characters? The ability to invest in their goals? An interest in the world they inhabit? An indefinable X-factor?

In this case there's a lot of jabbering about bloodlines and hybrids and alliances, but no reason to care about any of it. For the most part, the vampire politics are just bland and difficult to follow. Selene and Michael fall in love, but you wouldn't know it based on their chemistry or interactions. Apparently Kraven was in cahoots with Lucien all along after helping him fake his death and making a secret agreement to ... geez, I can't even remember anymore.

There's also a betrayal/twist towards the end in which Selene not only learns Lucien has justified reasons for waging war on vampires, but that her sire isn't the benevolent father figure he's made himself out to be – but there's not a grain of emotional resonance to this realization. Their entire relationship has been related to us in voiceover.

(Plus anyone who can't foresee that a Vampire Elder played by Bill Nighly is a bad guy has clearly never watched a vampire flic in their entire life).

So much of the plot is built on world-building rather than the world-building supplementing the story, and because things like Lucien's "death" and the Vampire Elders' hibernation is conveyed through hasty exposition, it's difficult to know what the stakes are at any given moment.

But perhaps the biggest problem is the fact the two leads are just pawns on a much larger chessboard, thrown into a fight they didn't start or fully understand. Yeah, I know I've just described a lot of "didn't ask for this/in over my head" protagonists, but the difference is that at no point does it feel like Selene or Michael take control of the narrative, either as sympathetic, three-dimensional individuals or as compelling characters that serve a crucial purpose.

It's with Viktor and Lucien that the real interest and agency lies (the franchise obviously agreed with me, as the third film focuses entirely on them), leaving Selene as the fourth most important character in the movie; almost entirely reactionary in everything she does (and the one decisive move she does make is a colossal mistake).

Underworld: Evolution (2006)

The sequel picks up right where the last one left off, to the point where (despite a quick recap) newcomers would be totally baffled if they watched this one first. In fact, the two are so closely connected that in many ways it's best to treat them as a single film.

The filmmakers must have quickly realized their mistake in killing off Bill Nighly's Viktor and keeping Shane Brolly's more pitiful Kraven, as the former gets an extended flashback sequence and the latter is promptly killed off to make way for the next Big Bad: Marcus (Tony Curran), the last of the three Vampire Elders.

Attempts to expand on the backstory only make it more convoluted: it turns out that Marcus is the first of the vampires, the direct son of the immortal Alexander Corvinus (Derek Jacobi – yes really) whose brother was the first werewolf. But unlike other lycans, his brother William is a mindless, bloodthirsty creature, and he's locked away in a sarcophagus by the Elders so as not to wreak havoc across the world.

After Marcus wakes up, he decides (apropos of nothing) to find his brother, and decides (somehow) that hunting down Selene and Michael is the best way to do this.

There's also a retcon involving the reasons Selene was turned into a vampire: the first movie revealed that the death of her family at the hands (paws?) of lycans was actually a fabrication to cover for Viktor's killing spree; murdering all but Selene because she reminded him of his daughter Sonja (who he had executed for her love affair with Lucien – whew, these backstories are complicated).

However, this movie tells us that Selene's father was the man who created William's sarcophagus, including the two keys that opened its door – one of which was disguised as a necklace worn by Sonja – leading to Viktor's wholesale slaughter of the family. Apparently Selene was spared because she was the only one who knew the true location of the sarcophagus within an ancient island fortress.

So the mythology is expanded to include Selene ... but who cares about all that? This film is best known for the terrible sex scene, taking place in a shipping container stored in an abandoned warehouse, in which Michael appears to make love to Selene's belly button, made all the more awkward by the fact Kate Beckinsale's husband was directing. Yikes.

In any case their chemistry is zilch and there's no rapport whatsoever. What do they talk about? What do they have in common? Perhaps stupid questions considering one is a vampire and the other a one-of-a-kind hybrid, but the relationship is a vacuum of affection, attraction or affinity.

The only thing that's given any sort of depth (and I'm being very generous with the definition of "depth" here) is Michael grappling with the drawbacks of being a werewolf AND a vampire. It basically translates to being super-strong and not being able to eat normal food.

So while Selene tries to plot their next move, Marcus hunts the couple down in order to get the information/tools he needs to free his brother, all culminating in a shoot-out in a half-submerged cavern system under an old castle.

Though there are some beautiful shots of snow falling on Selene's dark hair (if nothing else, you have to appreciate the aesthetic of these films) the choice to arm vampires with guns leads to some pretty boring fight scenes. With sword-fighting or martial arts there's a level of skill and finesse involved, but this is just standing on the spot and shooting.

But with Marcus and William destroyed (and their father Alexander just for good measure, though not before he bestows more magical abilities on Selene), it's hard to know how to take the story forward. How do you go bigger than the very first immortal/vampire/werewolf?

The answer is: you don't go forward. You go back and do the prequel.  

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)

For all its problems, this prequel understands something the first two movies didn't: that all the juiciest and most interesting parts of the plot happened centuries before Selene was born.

Rise of the Lycans focuses on the genesis of the war between vampires and werewolves, set in some pseudo-Gothic time period that allows them to embrace the aesthetic I suspect they wanted all along: armour, swords, castles and cloaks.

Bill Nighly is back as Viktor, as is Michael Sheen as Lucien – along with Steven Mackintosh as Tanis, a character who was introduced and killed off in Evolution, and (even stranger) Kevin Grevioux as Raze, a lycan from the first movie who is never seen again. The other Vampire Elders are hat-tipped as already being in hibernation, but Kraven is oddly nowhere to be seen.

It basically sets up the first movie, but has little to do with the second beyond mentioning a couple of key points.

In this unspecified time and place, a Council of Vampires rules over a citadel filled with lycan slaves. If you spent the last two movies wondering what the difference was between a werewolf and a lycan, it's established here that the former exist in permanent wolf-form with only a vague sense of self-awareness, while the latter can change from human to wolf and are vastly more intelligent.

Lucien was the first of these lycans, having been born in human form to a werewolf mother. Best not to wonder about the logistics of this (did a human male manage to procreate with a wolf??) what's important is that the vampires quickly realize the advantages of lycan slaves.

By the time Lucien is an adult, he's been used to turn dozens of humans from the surrounding villages into lycans, all of whom are put to hard labour in the citadel. He seems to have accepted his lot in life, with Viktor acting as a sort-of father figure to him (albeit a father of the slave-master variety). But he's also banging Viktor's daughter Sonja whilst plotting a slave revolt...

Rhona Mitra is a pretty good choice for a Selene doppelganger (this film takes us back to Viktor's original reason for turning Selene; that she reminded him of his daughter), but as an original character Sonja falls squarely into Faux Action Girl territory. She's introduced galloping for her life, never wins a single fight, spends a good portion of the film locked in her room, and eventually meets her demise chained to a post. Just for good measure, she's given lines such as "I needed no saving" and "I am quite capable of looking after myself."

Ever notice that when a female character touts her own independence and strength, the exact opposite will always manifest on screen?

And we all know how it ends. It's rather odd to get a prequel that explores the backstories of characters that die in the franchise's first film, which only serves to infuse the whole thing with a sense of futility and redundancy. We learn nothing here that wasn't spelt out in full during the course of Underworld in a twenty second flashback, to the point where I wonder if it works better for audiences to watch Rise of the Lycans first.

Sure, it would give away several plot-points that are treated as reveals in the first movie: the origins of the war, Lucien's motivation, even the true circumstances of Selene's turn to vampirism (thanks to a final voiceover from Kraven), but like I said in my Underworld review – none of these twists are delivered in a particularly satisfying way in the first movie, so you may as well watch them unfold chronologically.

But what this prequel really demonstrates is that the entire franchise can't settle on a consistent hook. Most of the problems raised in Rise of the Lycans are resolved in Underworld and Evolution, and all the protagonists/villains of this film have been killed off by the time Awakening begins, with Selene going on to face new conflicts that have almost no bearing whatsoever on the convoluted backstory that's been extensively mapped out in the last three films.

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

When you've plumbed the depths of your backstory and killed off all the main villains, there's only one way to go forward: initiate a twelve year Time Skip and introduce an entirely out-of-left-field conflict between humans and vampires/lycans that will be completely dropped in the very next movie.

By this point Scott Speedman had checked out of the franchise (not sure why, as judging by IMDB he's not up to much these days), leaving Selene to fend for herself in what feels like a futuristic world Twenty Minutes Into the Future. He appears only as stock footage before becoming an off-screen Living MacGuffin for Selene to find once she breaks out of cryogenic sleep at a laboratory.

Yeah, the plot manages to be even more bonkers this time around. Humanity has found out about lycans and vampires, leading to a mass genocide across the globe that drives most of the survivors underground. Selene ends up getting captured, and when she awakens twelve years later, she starts hunting for her lost love – only the visions she's been having don't come from Michael; they're from their daughter Eve.

I honestly couldn't tell you the logistics behind this. Was Selene pregnant before she was put on ice? Was she artificially inseminated? Was Eve a test tube baby? If the film answers this question, I must have missed it. Much like the Selene/Michael relationship, there's no emotional depth whatsoever between mother and daughter, but as you might have guessed, Eve is another super-special hybrid that everyone is trying to hunt down.

This was my least favourite instalment in the franchise, so there's not much to say about it. All the decent villains are dead, the "humans are killing vampires" angle is never utilized in a particularly interesting way, and the lycans go back to being bad guys thanks to a father/son team of mad scientists who are out to create the perfect hybrid weapon, yada yada yada.  

The supporting characters aren't bad (Theo James as David, a vampire who considers Selene a saviour figure, and Michael Ely as Sebastian, a human cop with a surprisingly poignant backstory) but ultimately rather forgettable. There's a pretty cute (and equally unlikely) inversion of the first movie's "escape a hallway by firing bullets down through the floor" scene in which Selene saves herself from a falling elevator box by shooting up through the floor, but the fight scenes are even more lacklustre this time around.

So there's a severe lack of imagination in the needless continuation of a story that was pretty much wrapped up in the first two films, with a bonus prequel that told us nothing new about the mythology. Awakening and its direct sequel follow a brand new plot trajectory, as we find out in...

Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

Now we come to the most recent Underworld film, which was released at the end of last year or the beginning of this one depending on what part of the world you live in. In many ways it's a direct follow-on from Awakening, though with one bizarre omission: that whole genocide of vampire/lycans at the hands of the human race? Doesn't even warrant a mention.

Instead the film tries to get back to the franchise's roots, focusing on the vampire/lycan war (with the former back to milling around aimlessly in their luxury mansion and the latter back to brawling with each other on the docks) even as it carries over Theo James and Charles Dance from the last movie, and makes Eve a fairly significant plot-point despite her not appearing on-screen for more than two seconds. They even throw in some new stuff about Viktor, Amelia and Corvinus.

Two new villains are introduced who work reasonably well: Marius (Tobias Menzies) as the new leader of the lycans, and Semira (Lara Pulver) as an ambitious member of the Vampire Council. Marius wants to get his hands on Eve so that he can use her to end the war (again I'm left wondering why hybrids are such a big deal) while Semira has a plot to bring Selene back into the fold and then frame her for the murders of the new recruits (it's apparently got something to do with avenging Viktor).

Semira is established as a great manipulator and Marius has a sense of honour, though neither trait lasts very long and soon we're getting more strange developments thrown at us: David turns out to be the secret son of Amelia (conveyed in the most hilariously apathetic dialogue possible), there's a coven of peaceful vampires living in the far north (who all have white hair for some reason), Selene gets magical transportation powers to go with her ability to walk in the sun, and Marius is getting inside information from his vampire lover who looks about fifteen years old (and whose inevitable death at Semira's hands doesn't seem to faze him in the slightest).

Oh, and Merlin fans might be interested to know Bradley James is here too, though his role isn't particularly exciting: he's Semira's lapdog who is loyal to her up to the moment it suits him otherwise. His character miraculously manages to survive the entire film, but I don't think it was the best career move.

But having a woman in the director's chair leads to a plethora of female characters in smaller roles, including never-before-seen female lycans, and there's a definite slant in favour of women ending up in leadership roles. It's not something you'd see exalted on The Mary Sue or anything, but it was a definite improvement on the previous films, which only had two female characters tops.

There's a very hurried wrap-up, wherein Michael is officially declared dead after two movies that've featured Selene desperately looking for him, and a return from Eve for about two seconds (which ends up just being face superimposed onto a younger body – I guess the actress grew up too fast) but for the most part it's as entertaining as you'd expect, with the usual morass of political intrigue, revenge plots and gory deaths.

But is it the last movie? Ten years after the first Underworld, Kate Beckinsale does look significantly older, and though there's more plot to be mined when it comes to Eve (that's assuming they don't just write her out again; clearly they weren't that interested in the concept of a child vampire this time around) Blood Wars would still serve as a fairly definitive close.

Only time will tell...

Miscellaneous Observations:

There's a strange sort of class commentary at work throughout the franchise: the vampires live (communally?) in a stylish mansion, lounging about in evening wear, while the lycans live in the sewers and wear hoodies.

Yet despite their differences, vampires and lycans all have names like Rigel, Nathaniel, Raze and Pierce. Can you guess which names belong to which species? You can't, because they all fall under the Ye Olde Timey Names umbrella.

The costuming choices for the vampire are hilarious. Their style is best described as Hot Topic Goth Ballroom Leather, but the pretentiousness heightens further when you realize they have shooting practice on white marble busts.

For some reason, there are hardly any female lycans. What's up with that? There's no real reason there shouldn't be.

The dialogue is dull where it should be snappy (example: "I'm not screwing around." Comeback: "Neither am I.") It's depressing to contemplate what Joss Whedon could have done to elevate this material.

What cracked me up: there's a single black guy on both sides, and not one more.

For all the franchise's faults, I appreciate the touches of continuity. In a brief flashback in Evolution we briefly see Kraven watching Viktor turning Selene into a vampire – this fits in with the fact he told her the truth about her family's death in the first movie.

There are some pretty committed character actors that've somehow been roped into all this: Bill Nighly, Michael Sheen, Charles Dance, Derek Jacobi, Tony Curran – as well as plenty of other familiar faces: Lara Pulver, Theo James, Sophia Myles, Steven MacKintosh, Tobias Menzies, Wentworth Miller, Michael Ealy and Bradley James.

***

Sometimes watching bad stuff gives you important tips on what not to do in your own work, and the Underworld franchise taught me some valuable lessons. More than anything, it makes a lot of mistakes in its world-building.

There are some fictional worlds with in-depth history and geography that I love reading about: Middle Earth, Westeros, the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender; they're rich and intriguing, but more importantly they serve as a backdrop to the plot and characters, never overwhelming the story that's being told.

(There's also such a thing as too much world-building, as in Harry Potter and Star Wars, but that's a discussion for another post).

Though there's no problem with Underworld's premise (that there's a secret war going on between two supernatural races) the world-building is full of overly complicated nonsense involving bloodlines, councils, hybrids, regents, faked deaths, and unique individuals that belong to a sub-species which already makes them unique. Selene, Eve, Michael, Lucien, nearly all the villains – too many characters are magical snowflakes in some way or other. It's just ... too much.

(Can we just call a moratorium on hybrids? Minds can handle the suspension of disbelief for the existence of vampires and werewolves, but as soon as you start talking about super-special hybrids, a story collapses under its own weight).

The franchise has always struggled with plots that are clogged with world-building minutia and gluts of exposition which are important to the story, but don't feel important due to the way it's all conveyed to the audience (largely through voiceover). As a result, it overwhelms the characters and convolutes the plots.

To quote Ursula le Guin: “Crafty writers...don't allow Exposition to form Lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with.”

Like I said above, another problem is that most of what happens is due to decisions that were made and events that occurred years, even centuries ago, by villains and secondary characters, rendering Selene and Michael as almost entirely reactionary as a result. Almost every other character contributes more to the plot than they do.

And when it comes to their villains – it's hard to put into words, but it's almost like they went too big, too soon. After you've killed off all the Vampire Elders AND the very first werewolf AND the very first lycan AND the very first immortal, it's kinda hard to know where to go from there.

Finally (though this is more of a pet peeve of mine) the franchise never shows any interest whatsoever in what it's like to actually be a vampire or werewolf. There's no depiction of their heightened senses, no melancholy over their immortality, no weariness at being wrapped up in a centuries-long feud with no end in sight.

To be fair, these traits are seldom explored in any vampire-related media (exceptions include Bram Stoker's Dracula or Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire) but it's a sad fact that at this point the creatures of the night are so ubiquitous in pop-culture that their existence is almost incidental. Vampires and lycans – no big deal! Perhaps that's why so many hybrids are running around this franchise; to merely be an immortal blood-sucker or a half-man half-wolf just feels blasé.

***

So that was Underworld: five movies and counting. There's every chance a sixth instalment is on its way: the franchise is still making money and the vampire/lycan war has yet to draw to a close (an event which would seem to be the logical conclusion to the franchise).

Of course, Kate Beckinsale doesn't quite look the same as she did in 2003, which is a problem if you're playing an ageless vampire, and Scott Speedman's character has been definitively written out of the storyline, replaced by a vampire/lycan hybrid child that nobody seems to know what to do with.

I enjoy these silly movies; I wouldn't have bothered writing all this if I didn't, but a significant part of me wishes they were better than they are. It's all very well to aim for shlocky nonsense, but when you have the pieces in place for a genuinely good product, it's all the more grating when it doesn't deliver.

The horror/romance genre loves to pair up vampires and werewolves; it's a conflict that naturally gives birth to commentary on race and class (see also: the glitzy white vampires and the Native American werewolves of Twilight) and Underworld gets pretty close to a semi-coherent theme when it portrays the lycans as escaped slaves of the aristocratic vampires, and of star-crossed lovers existing as proof the two species can live in harmony...

But the franchise doesn't attempt to set its sights that high, instead choosing to build itself on Kate Beckinsale in a cat-suit. I suppose there are worse things it could centre on.