Movie Thoughts: Underworld: Evolution (2006) [amended: here also be cravat thrall]
MPAA Classification: R (Violence, profanity, sex, nudity)
Koala Classification: Eek eek! This movie is bad! :)
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Tony Curran, Derek Jacobi, Bill Nighy, Steven Mackintosh
Director: Len Wiseman
Wow. This movie was beyond bad. I can't believe how bad it was! My brother hated the first movie, but I thought it was stylish and good-looking despite its feeble plotline. Underworld: Evolution just make me shake my head in gobsmacked shock at how an expensive movie like this gets to be made. What were they thinking? Shame on you Kate Beckinsale - how can you go from making adorable little movies like Cold Comfort Farm to gunk like this? I love brain and eye popcorn but this was more like sludge!
It's a lie when people say that if you liked the first Underworld movie that you'll like this one!
I don't even know where to begin with the non-existent storyline. In the first story, the Death Eaters Dealers (vampires) and the Lycans (werewolves) were at perpetual war. The Death Eaters Dealers were sexy, black leather-wearing goth-looking supermodels whereas the Lycans were ferocious, shaggy, baggy CGI doozies that looked like hairy anteaters gone wrong. Lucky Death Eaters Dealers, poor Lycans.
I can't remember the exact details but there was double-crossing, treachery, mixed loyalties and Scott Speedman played a human doctor who got embroiled in the war because it turns out he's a hybrid of the two (three) races with amazing powers that enable him to turn the colour of sickly mouldy green putty when he gets angry. Kate Beckinsale in the first movie gets to run around a lot in a skin tight black leather jumpsuit which must have been bloody uncomfortable to wear even though she does look very striking in it.
Kate Beckinsale as Selene is back - the sexy Death Eater Dealer (vampire). She's not alone though, by her side is half-werewolf/half-vampire Michael, played by the earnest, squinty-eyed Scott Speedman. They're on the run because at the end of Underworld 1 they killed Viktor (Bill Nighy) - the most bad ass of vampires ever. Except of course, because this is a sequel, he wasn't the the most bad ass and a dead guy who was conveniently leaking his blood downstairs, has inadverently woken up Marcus. Marcus is in fact the most bad ass of vampires ever .... and he has wings and a kind of spiky tentacle thing which he uses like a pair of tongs - he also uses it to poke people which is not very nice of him but he doesn't come from a very nice family.
Bill Nighy, whom I keep calling Bill Nighty, first appears in the movie in flashback and the storyline is something along the lines of - this all started because Marcus the Baddest Vampire Ever (played by Tony Curran) had a brother called William who was the first Lycan ever and between them they laid waste to the land. For some reason Marcus still had a soft spot for his psychotic, murderous, hairy snouty brother (probably because he himself is psychotic murderous and fang-y), so turned Viktor (previously a powerful lord) and all of his men into a vampires so that he could secure his assistance to capture his brother but not harm him. Viktor betrayed Marcus and imprisoned William. The convenient explanation for why he didn't kill either of Marcus nor William was that he was under the mistaken belief that their death would result in his own.
Now, centuries later ..... Marcus is back .. he's mad and I had a moment of panic that he was played by Paul McGann from Our Mutual Friend but to my relief he was played by Tony Curran whom I do not know from a bar of soap.
Selene and Michael must then try to stop Marcus' muahahahha plan to take over the world with his hairy brother. There's also a mysterious rich guy who observes everything and has a team of SWAT guys who hop in and out to 'clean up' messes. He ends up being the father of the lovely young brothers and he's played by Derek Jacobi who really needs to get a new agent.
There's lots of chasing, running, fighting, impaling, more impaling and some more impaling. Michael is kind of pathetic and although Wiseman keeps faking us out with his death, he keeps coming back to life which is good if you're a Speedman fan but I found it kind of annoying. Also he only has one fighting style which is to rip out the jaws of his enemies which kind of got old after the second or third time he did it! :)
Selene on the other hand had a cool gun move where she whacks the two butts of her gun together and they kind of miraculously rearm themselves which was cool the first time she did it ... but then she does it like four times in a row within four seconds and I was thinking: "OK that's kind of boring now". :) Furthermore, we were wondering where she got the guns given that her Black Leather Jumpsuit of Sexy Vampiric Tightness did not have any pockets and any pockets would have had to have been like Dr Who's TARDIS (bigger on the inside than the outside) to have fit those guns!
To my absolute horror, my first BBC Dickens crush Steven Mackintosh from "Our Mutual Friend" shows up in this movie as Tanis, an exiled chronicler of the coven who is channelling Hugh Hefner. He spends his exile having kinky vampiric sex which involves straddling one bloody-mouthed vampirette while another one sexily bites his shoulder. Oh Steven!!!! What are you doing? :) I almost screamed a Star Warsian: "Nooooooo!" at the screen when I saw to what depths my crush had descended. Also, why is it that sexually hedonistic, Hugh Hefner esque vampires must strut around bare chested with long fur trimmed cloaks and medallions.
Michael and Selene get a sex scene which is implausible for a number of reasons. That Black Leather Jumpsuit of Sexy Vampiric Tightness would have taken at least an hour to get off her. Also, Beckinsale's director husband Wiseman appears to find Beckinsale's bellybutton the height of eroticism because during their very unerotic love scene, we get close-ups of said bellybutton on no less than 3 occasions. Presumably this is to show us how raunchy this movie is and that both actors are Truly Naked but it just kind of looked silly to me.
Also, I know Baldwin and Cindy Crawford took the cake in "Fair Game" (yes I saw that movie :P ) when in the middle of a very frantic chase sequence they decide to have unabandoned sex in a train carriage despite the fact that the bad guys are almost upon them - but this movie was much the same. Evil, psychotic, winged, tentacled Marcus is pursuing them so they decide to frolic about having kinky sex..... Hmmmm. Makes sense :P
Scott Speedman does nothing for me and spends most of his time shirtless, looking angsty, pretending to be dead, ripping out people's jaw bones, turning a greyish colour and trying to look angsty. He has more foresight than the Hulk though. Prior to each transformation, he carefully takes off his fur-trimmed hooded parka and places it down before morphing into putty man.
Tony Curran as Marcus is scary-looking but scariest is the fact that he struts around in tight pants, a very elaborate looking belt and buckle and looks like he wants to audition for a spot in Manpower or the Chippendales.....
There's lots of biting in this movie and using blood as a panacea for all injuries ..... Flashbacks galore. Kate Beckinsale gets really good at continually doing "Flashback Face" ie. looking into the air as if remembering something.
If you want to watch this movie - you have been warned! :) A big paws down!!! :)