I finally watched Underworld

[Vocenoctum]

Mrs. Barsoom and I liked it reasonably well in the theatre -- GREAT gun sounds (Mrs. Barsoom considers herself quite the connisseur of gun sounds), and hey, there's room in my entertainment for Kate Becksale's butt in black latex, I'm afraid. It's not porn, it's pretty.

While a pretty.. face... can surely add to a movie, she just isn't hot enough to have drawn me purely by that feature alone.

Also, I heard several complaints about the guns, mainly the hollywood standard of "never ending bullets" but also the "why do they bother with the tactical flashlights if they just want to wander in the dark?"

The story is pretty thin and a lot of the beats are just missed or don't make a lot of sense -- why does dropping through a hole in the floor make werewolves lose track of you? How come Lucian can run after a car and catch up with it the first time but the second time he just says, "Ah, heck," and turns away? What happened to those silver nitrate bullets? How did the vampires stay on top of the werewolves all these years?

The years are weighing heavily on their souls!

 

[Mapleaxe]

My take on Underworld is that it had lots of good ideas, but they couldn't execute on them in the writing/story or the acting. There's a very good reason for this. After I saw it last fall, I went out on imdb.com and checked out the resumes of the director, writers, and producers. All of them were either actor/stuntmen or fx guys. So they wrote a movie that showcased action and special effects, cast themselves and their friends, and missed the mark on the writing and acting. It's a reasonable "first effort"; their next one will hopefully be better.

IMO the live-action Spawn movie suffered from the same problem. It was directed by a former ILM guy who stuffed as much CGI imagery into it as they could, literally coming up with new shots in the last few weeks of production as the studio started giving them more money based on the popular buzz of the movie.

 

[Umbran]

I happened to watch this movie last night. Found it to be prety dull, all in all.

The acting may have been adequate, but the dialog was bland. The characters were not well developed - they came across to me as pretty shallow or hollow. I simply don't see any romance developing betweent the romantic interests. The action was there, but it lacked dramatic tension, IMHO. Much of it was irrelevant, or the resutls were clearly a foregone conclusion. And while the "scientific" details may differ slightly, but most of the plot elements have been seen before, and there wasn't much originality in their recombination here.

And my biggest pet peeve - the unrelenting use of black has been done to death. Vampires do not have to be pale people wearing black clothes living in dimly lit houses whose rooms are painted black! When the only way to see the character's outline for half the movie is to see the shine off latex, you've got too much gosh darned black!

 

[Aaron L]

One thing I'd like to point out: While the idea of Goth black leather and sunglasses Vampires is a cliche to us gamers, I think it isn't as ubiquitous a concept for all the mundanes out there.


I thouhgt the movie was very entertaining. I might buy the DVD. Jason vs Freddy is my next DVD purchase tho.

 

[Atridis]

One thing I'd like to point out: While the idea of Goth black leather and sunglasses Vampires is a cliche to us gamers, I think it isn't as ubiquitous a concept for all the mundanes out there.

Something that bugs me in a lot of movies is the (apparent) assumption that the audience knows nothing of the subject matter. I mean, who but people like us are most likely to grab a tenner and race out to the theater for this movie?

For whatever reason (actually, I have some suspicions), recent Vampire-type movies seem to frown upon the idea that these beings are supernatural creatures. Since Blade, the likes of Vampires have become increasingly "human." They don't fly, they don't change into anything, they don't control minds, they cast shadows and reflections, they don't move with preternatural speed, and they're not outrageously strong.

This REALLY bugged me about Underworld. More so than in other movies. At least the vampires in Blade seemed like scary s.o.b.s who'd kill you as soon as look at you. Kraven was no Deacon Frost. Even Donal Logue was threatening enough to illustrate how badass The Daywalker really was (that is, he was a punchline of a vampire, but he'd still end me in a heartbeat). The vampires in UW seemed more like LARPers in a World of Darkness game to me. Really good LARPers, with a budget. And real guns, making them psychotic LARPers, I suppose. Actually, that might have been a more interesting premise than actual vampires with no supernatural powers (okay, clinging to the ceiling was sort of cool, but it was a total nonsequitor). Did any of the vampires even drink any blood? The bowl of red wine/fruit punch doesn't count.

For what it's worth, I thought Kate Beckinsale's acting in this movie was one of its (few) redeeming features. And it looked cool - lighting, costuming, set design, hot people (like I said, really good LARPers with a budget).

 

[WayneLigon]

Are people ever going to let go of that comparison?
20 years from now, when there's a slo-mo effect of a gun being fired, will people dismiss that movie because The MAtrix used it in 1999?

No, they won't and yes, they still will. I see people now diss movies for incorporating superficial elements from, say, Aliens or Predator.

I mean, seriously, how scary of a villain are you when your name is synonymous with "coward".

Because 'Kraven' just sounds cool, and I'll bet you cash money that less than 25% of the people in this country know what the word 'craven' means.

I was really looking forward to Underworld, but came out of it just lukewarm. I think it was a classic case of 'we tried to stuff too much into this movie and could not make up our minds what we wanted to do'. It struck me like that. The various ideas they presented could easily have been spread through two or three movies.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Did any of the vampires even drink any blood?

Yeah - Viktor, when he's getting woken up.

Of course, it's vampire blood.

-Hyp.

 

[Umbran]

And real guns, making them psychotic LARPers, I suppose. Actually, that might have been a more interesting premise than actual vampires with no supernatural powers (okay, clinging to the ceiling was sort of cool, but it was a total nonsequitor).

IIRC, they do move with preternatural speed at one or two points. So they're really fast, psychotic LARPers who can live centuries, jump down many stories, land on their feat and walk away without missing a beat...

 

[reapersaurus]

umm.. guys?
http://www.samruby.com/Villains/Kraven/kraven.htm

Don't you think you're being a LITTLE picky when you're complaining about the name "Kraven" when one of Spidey's most deadly foes has been thought of as cool for decades with the same name?

What else is fodder for internet hyper-criticalness now?
"You know, any movie with a character with the name of "Cyclops" is just stupid. And what kind of name is "Logan" anyway? Having one name is silly. And 'DayWalker'?! What kind of retardedness is that? Ooh - he walks in the day, so they call him a daywalker. They don't refer to me as Pizza Eater, just because I eat pizza, do they?
And Legolas? Any hero named after a kid's toy makes the whole movie ruined for me."

Guys - it's fantasy movies here, not high art.
Act like a fan for a second and stop making yourselves look petty by bringing up Very Small Criticisms.

 

[Numion]

My gripe with UW is that the vampires' greatest supernatural ability seemed to be that they could fall down from 5th floor with no injuries

The vampires were just humans . . blech. Something to do with the mini budget, I guess. I'm going back to waiting Blade Trinity