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.
