Rating: 
Summary: New Look At An Old Tale
Review: OK, some people have been giving this movie major guff for the use of guns. Where the hell is this coming from? Using silver bullets to kill a werewolf is nothing new. Also, why are people complaining about the guns in general? Why should they fight hand to hand combat when they can use a firearm like the rest of the world. In case nobody noticed what Kate mentioned at the beginning (unless you were already out to criticize and didn't even want to pay any attention) was that the weapons of the last century had become absolite. They may be immortal, but at least they have a sense of practicality. So if you want to complain about the guns, complain that they drive cars, that they live in a house with modern gadgets, or better yet, complain about why the movie took place in the 21st century. The use of guns puts a whole new look on a what would otherwise be a boring tale as old as time itself.
Rating: 
Summary: worst vampire movie since dracula: dead or alive
Review: this movie was laughable at best. no one paid attention to any of the rules of vampires, except that they drink blood. none of the vampires were superhuman (the main character passed out after losing a little blood). the special effects were terrible. the only ability that the vampires had was jumping in slow motion. in one scene, a vampire actually looked at herself in the mirror, in the mirror! last i heard, vampires don't have reflections. like i said, laughable. i agree that the guns added to this horror-of-a-movie. the "lycans" were ok, but that was only because the vampires were so weak. don't waste your time or your money. people should be ashamed that a movie like this was actually made.
Rating: 
Summary: Reinventing vampires and werewolves... into total bores.
Review: Think a film about a war between vampires and werewolves sounds cool? Think again.The vampires in UNDERWORLD have no supernatural powers to speak of, beyond the fact that they're immortal and have superhuman strength. Instead of using stealth, cunning, and teeth they fight with lots and lots of guns. The werewolves don't fare much better. In addition to being immortal and having superhuman strength, the werewolves (called "lycans" in the film, short for lycanthropes) have the ability to change their form regardless of whether or not the moon is full. However, the change is little more than cosmetic, as they don't get any stronger. They grow sharp claws and teeth, but can't hold a gun in wolf form so it's pretty much a wash. Their preferred method of fighting is - you guessed it - lots and lots of guns (in human form). So basically UNDERWORLD takes a really cool concept, removes everything cool about it, and gives us a standard issue post-MATRIX shoot-em-up. Only problem here is we don't know which side to root for as neither side has any agenda regarding the fate of humans - in fact neither side has any use for humans at all (the vampires drink cloned blood in bags, the werewolves just eat whatever). So although we'd like the protagonists to survive, we couldn't care less about whatever cause they're fighting for, if any. 2 stars for impressive effects and Kate Beckinsale in tight leather. Other than that this film earns a big SO WHAT?
Rating:
Summary: Silly and derivative
Review: There's barely an original moment in Underworld, and sadly those parts that are derived from elsewhere in motion picture history (that is, all of it), are derived without wit or feeling for their antecedents or the genre. I have a feeling this film would never have been made were it not for the Matrix. It basically is the Matrix, only with werewolves and vamps, and a blue wash over all the cinematography rather than a green one. So we have a hard-arsed chick in a tight patent-leather cat suit toting a sub-machine gun in each hand in a subway station, driving performance sports cars absurdly fast, performing aerial flips and other acrobatics. Only she's a vampire. With a laptop. We have perpetual rain: we have the trademark Wachowski straight-down shot of rain falling away from the camera onto parked cars in a narrow alley. There's a big final punch-up between two indestructible foes in a great big puddle. But while it rips off the Matrix's visuals, Underworld has neither the wit - the tongue-in-cheek film noir; the fairly well spec'd cod philosophy - nor any of the style: Kate Beckinsale is no Carrie Anne Moss, having about as much sex appeal as a Tupperware lunchbox, and I'm afraid to say the all-important fight choreography *really* blows. The bits that are original, sadly, tend to foul up the rest of the picture. To wit: pitting the "lycans" (nice try, by the way, to make werewolves sound hip. Didn't work) against vampires misses the fundamental point of both genres, which is the need-to-sleep-with-the-light-on-afterwards factor: they're supposed to GET US. And DRINK OUR BLOOD. In Underworld they're knocking six shades of hell out of each other (with guns... GUNS?? VAMPIRES WITH GUNS? What the hell is going on?), so rather than being terrifying, it plays out more like a moodily lit feature-length episode of the World Wrestling Federation. You don't really care who wins as long as there is damn good fight. But, as noted, the fight choreography is Woe Ful than Wo Ping. There's zero chemistry between any of Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy or the other one and Kate - it's understandable, fellahs; it's hard to love an airtight plastic container. Sophia Myles plays a decidedly plot-functional blonde vamp-girl who pops up at critical moments to push the narrative along, but doesn't end up having much to do with anything. I think she's rather petulantly sent to her room just before the climax, and you never see her again. Since she was about the most interesting part of the picture, that's a pity. For my money, Myles would have been a better female lead than Beckinsale. A special "opportunity knocks" award should go to Bill Nighy, who's been underachieving in British TV dramas since 1979 or so, never showing up in anything of note, who finally snags a peach of a part in Love Actually, and now you can't get the old buzzard off your screen - a fading rock star there; a sleazy Tory MP in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet; a lecherous 19th Colonel in He Knew He Was Right and a now a thousand year old vampire uber-lord in Underworld, and ALL of them portrayed as exactly the same character! Even Kevin Costner would be impressed with that! Not sure what he would have made of the rest of the film, however. Olly Buxton
Rating: 
Summary: Solid, if somewhat unoriginal, action flick
Review: I had low expectations going in to this movie but was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining it was. What was more surprising was to see how many low ratings this movie has received here at Amazon. I think part of the backlash is resentment over some overt 'borrowing' of material from other films. Significant elements of Underworld's storyline have been recycled from Blade II. The Matrix's influence on the visual style was unmistakeable and--in 2004--no longer looks fresh and original. What's more, several of the action gags seemed oddly familiar (a leather-clad female diving head first through a tiny window (Matrix). A bad guy stabbing through a roof with an arm-sword to get the good guys (T2). Monsters who choose walls and ceiling as their preferred terra firma when traversing a hall (Aliens)). The underdeveloped love sub-plot didn't work for me either. In this respect, the storyline was a little too lean and mean for its own good. If the filmmakers expected the audience to buy off on the romance between the female vampire lead and the human, they needed to lay a better foundation. In fairness, there were other motivations for her to do some of the things she did, but they didn't justify her actions (or risks) absent a romantic interest in the human (which again was underdeveloped). The creature effects for the werewolves were very good. The one disappointment was with the hybrid vampire/werewolf. It was supposed to have been a super monster, but it looked much less menacing than even the standard-issue werewolves. And while it initially appeared to have physical prowess vastly superior to even the toughest vampire, that misrepresentation was quickly put to rest in the subsequent action. After the built-up anticipation, the payoff was a bit of a letdown. Despite the negatives I've just listed, I find myself giving Underworld a thumps-up recommendation. A tight script yields a film that hits the ground running and pretty much never stops. If by some chance you've not seen the earlier-referenced films (alien abduction?), you might actually be blown away by this movie. Regardless, it's worth checking out. While Underworld may not be ground breaking, the sum of the parts add up to a fun evening in front of the home theater system. Three-and-a-half stars.
Rating:
Summary: Nice looking but boring
Review: This is a film that certainly should stand as an example of "style over substance." All the actors (except Scott Speedman)run around obviously feeling very cool and stylish in their dark costumes, but they forget to invest any real feeling into their performances. But that isn't entirely their fault. The idea of a whole separate "underworld" co-existing with ours, wherein vampires and lycans battle each other is pretty neat, but it's hard to imagine a movie doing LESS with the concept. And Kate Beckinsale (a vampire and lycan-hunter extraordinare) and Scott Speedman (bitten by a lycan) are sort-of Romeo and Juliet types, except the actors and the script forgets to inject any actual heat (or hint of believability) into their "romance." We gather that for some reason Beckinsale cares for the milquetoast, slightly seedy looking Speedman, but can't begin to imagine WHY! Beckinsale looks good in her costume. She's got a lean body and the right features for the role. But she's really pretty light-weight...and I'm concered that she's becoming a movie action figure, what with a lead role in VAN HELSING (where the previews make it clear she's got a terrible accent!). I've liked her in many things (LAUREL CANYON, for example) but this project lets her down...and she let's it down too. Although it's unlikely she could carry it. The film gets two stars (rather than one) for the costumes and for the great special effects when an ancient vampire (played by Bill Nighy) is brought prematurely back to life. He puts on layers of himself and we get to see the gory transformation. Someone put a lot of work into that...too bad the others involved in the film didn't try so hard. Can't really recommend this one to anyone, but I don't think there are any materials that a kid over 13 can't see.
Rating:
Summary: Laurell K. Hamilton fans unite...
Review: Want to see a story reminicent of Anita Blake's adventures? This is your film. The animosities of the characters and the story itself strongly remind me of the first time I read "Guilty Pleasures," and while it isn't her story, I believe Ms. Hamilton would be proud to be able to call these characters her own. If your one of her starstruck fans, like me, who wish her works would be brought to the silver screen: this is your film.
Rating: 
Summary: Great movie to watch while doing something else
Review: I mean the title of this review literally. I watched it while I was scanning a book for a publisher, and it was a good minor distraction from the mechanical drudgery of picking and placing paper into the scanner, since there wasn't that much plot to follow, so if I missed anything, it didn't matter. The movie opens with a commentary by "Selene", a "Death Dealer" mentioning "Lycans" and a "war", and the next two thirds of the picture are essentially Matrix-style gunfights and chases, peppered with occasional respites when the director and scriptwriter seem to run out of "Ok, what can we shoot at or blow up next?" ideas. After about two-thirds of the picture, you finally get to find out what's actually going on, who is fighting whom, and why the previous hour-and-fifteen-minutes of bang-bang-boom-boom has been happening. By that time, you may not care. Cinematically, it's "Matrix" meets "Clothing by Leather Masters", shot in a uniformly gray-blue color scheme that leaves every battlefield in the movie looking like every other. The only saving grace in this whole pointless and uninvolving exercise are the shots of Kate Beckinsale's face. She's a superb actress, emotes well, and has a face which would haunt the dreams of a Renaissance painter or sculptor. My advice: Rent once, rinse from memory, and don't bother with the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: should have been direct to video
Review: An entire movie filmed in a abandoned subway with mannequins. Really the stiffest most uncomfortable acting I have ever seen. Some actors, like Beckinsdale, choose to go through their lines as though between morphine comas. Others add too much emotion to their roles; with their emotional range being limited to really frigging angry. The head bad vampire acts the most angry, as though someone had stolen his morphine. But rather than being intimidating, he just comes off as whiny. The script of the film tries to come be a Shakespearian romance, when it is really about as dense as the five minute story arc from a soap opera.
People tried to argue that the movie was pretty and well shot. If you think "well shot" means lots of close ups on werewolves mouths (to convey an attack), shots of the moon, dark tunnels, and people chambering rounds into their weapons then...well, you're hopeless. But otherwise the film is laughably bad and only mildly entertaining. I should add that many guys will think that the film will redeem itself with lots of shots of Kate Beckinsdale in tight clothing. Well, she hides under a trench coat for most of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect example of a Bad movie making its way up the Boffice
Review: Extremely boring, i felt like leaving the hall half-way through. I really don't understand what people liked about this movie, i dont understand why it was such a success. The acting was horrible, average special effects and the storyline was obviously a rip-off from blade. The action scenes were badly executed, and look extremely fake. This movie basically tries very very hard to hide the fact that they copied nearly every aspect (including camera angles,costumes) from blade. And what's with the sound effects? The gun Kate Beck uses sounds like a toy gun. There is nothing good about this movie, the main reason IMO ppl thought this movie rocked was because there was nothing else to watch when it came out. So in conclusion, Bad movie with cool looking ppl in black to attract the juvenile crowd+ released at the right time = Success .
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