A&E

Volume CXXXIII, Number 3
September 26, 2003
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Vampire flick bites
LESLIE BRIDGERS
STAFF WRITER

Though my fellow movie-goers did manage to eat more than their fair share of my popcorn, the grumble of my stomach after leaving Underworld had less to do with hunger than the fact that I knew a very impossible task awaited me. I had to write 600 words about a movie that left me disturbingly speechless.

So, here I am, running the scenes through my head and trying not to let ridiculous lines and their even more ridiculous deliveries distract me from recognizing the plot. Too late. I guess there was one vital lesson to be learned from this movie: Lycans and vampires don't like each other, unless, of course, they are both very good-looking. And even more importantly, "Lycans" are werewolves and have no relation to "lichen." This very debate of homophones occupied my mind (along with the more common "should I go to the bathroom" dilemma) as I stared blankly at poorly-directed fight scenes that emphasized the amount of blood rather than the purpose of the battle.

The special effects were poor-some even provoking a guilty chuckle out of the audience. The dialogue was awkward and mostly consisting of the summary of a plot that had too many clumsy complexities to be worth following. The only congruent connection throughout the film was the love story between Celine (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman), yet it was hardly a story at all. The pair had few interactions and even fewer were romantic. The courtship climaxed when Celine, a female vampire, bit Michael's half-human, half-Lycan neck in order to mix their blood lines. Pretty hot, huh?

All in all, every one of the relationships between two characters was implied rather than displayed, and the individual characters were neither amiable nor despicable. In a movie based on a battle between two warring parties, I never figured out who the good guys were, and even worse, I didn't really care.

But maybe with all this underdevelopment and lack of clarity, could Underworld be trying to display the complexity of these characters? Is it attempting to get its audience members to question their own inner battles with morality? Maybe with smarter writing or more convincing actors, this kind of introspection would be feasible. The only thing I was left wondering about, however, was how I could replicate the perfect arch in Kate Beckinsale's eyebrows.

So, if you like The Matrix and wouldn't mind seeing a similar movie that is much, much worse, by all means, waste two hours at Underworld. But just for the record, I told you so.

since 11/01/02
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