Underworld Awakening 3D Movie Review
At least they don’t glitter in sunlight.
So last night I saw Underworld Awakening in 3D. In fact I saw it on IMAX, which I consider a true test of what I think my time is worth. You see, in order to watch a regular price show I would have had to sit around bored for over an hour. I have always believed that my time is worth more than $7 an hour, so I sprang for the ticket at full price. I also have a liking for the entire Underworld series and wanted to give it the best opportunity to present itself.
Good or bad? Sort of. Kate Beckinsale is back and looking as hot as ever. The action is honestly weaker than any of the previous movies in my opinion. Still decent and exciting, but kind of rote and formulaic. The problems really arise in the plot and pacing. 
The story progresses at warp speed (Enterprise image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category), leaving a messy chum of plot holes, unanswered questions, and highly questionable motivations in its wake. I really feel that a ton of expository footage ended up on the cutting room floor, which is a shame as the entire movie felt criminally short at a lousy 88 minutes. No one would have begrudged Swedish directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein an extra 15-20 minutes of screen time to flesh out the plot a little and give us a reason to care about anyone.
The two directors don’t have a lot of film experience and seem to be more well known for their TV work. This actually makes a lot of sense, as the pacing seems very 2 part TV show-ish. In fact, since most hour shows usually go 40-42 minutes than 88 minutes makes a lot of sense. When you have to fit into a specific time limit you learn to be economical with your development scenes. However, someone should tell them that the only limit cinema movies really has is how long an audience will sit in a seat. Some movies actually have been know to go well over two hours.
Anyway, the story is (once again) about the never ending war between Lycans and Vampires. Given what we learned about the start of the war in the last movie I have to say my sympathy more soundly resides with the Lycans, but they don’t have super hot Deathdealers in leather body suits so I guess I will let it pass. The twist in this film is humans have discovered both races and more or less hunted them into extinction using ammo specifically designed to kill them. Anyway, in a scene so blatantly ripped off from the first Resident Evil movie they might as well have called Selene Alice Selene wakes up from a frozen cryo tube in a laboratory. For some reason (the first example of “what the hell were they thinking?” plot holes) the scientists studying her felt the need to keep her leather outfit in the exact same lab for the last 12 years. She has been frozen and incommunicado for those 12 years while the humans destroyed all her old friends and enemies. She managed to gut a bunch of guards with a scalpel in about 1/4 of a second, which raises the question of if this is what vampires can do how did humans ever wipe them out even with magic bullets? Anyway, her love interest in the movie before last, the vampire/Lycan hybrid Michael, is missing and she wants to find him. She seems to have some kind of mental connection with someone she assumes to be him but actually turns out to be her 12 year old daughter (wait a minute. I might buy into the idea that she was impregnated before being captured (which actually raises a ton of other questions), but do they really expect me to believe that while in a freezer she managed to carry a child to term, give birth to it, regain her pre-pregnancy shape and athletic ability, and somehow has no memory of it?). Anyway, she meets up with another vampire (Theo James-the Inbetweeners Movie, Bedlam, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) who for no apparent reason knows who she is and wants to help her. He leads her to a hidden coven led by a guy who looks almost exactly like Phillip but isn’t (Charles Dance-Alien, Last Action Hero, Swimming Pool). Lycans attack and the girl gets recaptured by the scientist experimenting on her (Stephen Rae-V for Vendetta, Crying Game). At that point the whole humans hunting vampires story is more or less dropped for the remainder of the film. A human cop decides to help Selene for no discernible reason. Vampire on Lycan hijinks ensues. Stuff gets blown up. Cars get thrown around. The lead in for the next movie is crammed down our throats.
The stars. Vampires and Lycans who do what they are supposed to do, not sparkle in daylight. One star. Kate Beckinsale looking pretty hot. One star. Some of the action was palatable. Two stars. There was a nice merging of the Gothic vampire world with a dystopian slightly futuristic society. One star. Two bonus stars for the fact that I kind of enjoyed the film without being able to put my finger on why. Seven stars total.
The black holes. Plot holes bigger than the IMAX screen I was looking at. One black hole. A complete failure to give us anything in the way of an explanation of what was actually going on. One black hole. A complete lack of motivation from anyone to do anything. What was the villain trying to accomplish? Why did the other vampire help Selene? Why did the cop join up with her? The list goes on and on. One black hole. A lack of consistency in the powers that vampires or Lycans have. One minute Selene is running down a corridor and killing guys so fast they can’t even follow her, the next she is struggling to keep up with a moderately fast moving car. One black hole. The CGI was about as good as you will see on True Blood and the 3D was completely non existent for the majority of the film. Thanks for the headache and souvenir glasses. One black hole. A lot of the action kind of used cheesy camera angles and off camera shooting to create a fake feeling sequence. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of one star. Kind of mediocre. The decision to see it or not really depends on the individual. If you are the type to enjoy mindless action and blood, like vampires, have a thing for Kate Beckinsale, or just want to kill an afternoon without involving the majority of your brain cells then by all means see it on a big screen. If you find lame plot holes aggravating and can’t stomach a film that fails to provide you with any insight into what any of the characters are actually thinking than bail. Date movie? Probably not. Too much blood.
By the way, I didn’t give them a black hole for this but if you think the movie got it’s R rating for any kind of nudity or language prepare to be disappointed. It’s all about the blood on this one. Honestly it felt more PG-13 to me except for a few graphic gut scenes.
Thanks for reading. I’m seeing Haywire tonight so look for that review tomorrow. Busy weekend for movies. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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