Underworld: Awakening (2012)


 The Underworld series is just cotton candy to me at this point. I actually remember this film and "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" at theaters at the same time during the same weekend. Just Hollywood churning out horror sequels to films that probably didn't really need them. If I'm not mistaken there might have been a "Resident Evil" film even out sometime around this time. Whatever the case, the first time I watched this--as a rental from Redbox--I DID NOT like it. It was May of 2012. I guess I was maybe hoping for something more substantial at the time. Not sure why. I'll list the user comments below then continue.


Underworld Awakening opens as Humans are hunting down vampires (they are considered "the infected") in what is considered "the great purge", also eradicating lycans it seems. It is announced that lycans have been rendered extinct and few vampire covens remain in hiding. Selene and Michael are hoping to board a ship and leave but human SWAT police keep them from doing so. Selene awakens after a bomb knocks her and Michael unconscious, inside a cryogenic chamber, someone has freed her, and she soon discovers that it is her daughter, Eve (India Eisely). Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) is lead scientist in a corporation called Antigen, the leaders in trying to find a cure (or this is what they tell the public at large) and help to "cleanse the Earth" of infection. Ultimately, of course, Lane has sinister plans involving a lycans uprising and the downfall of the entire vampire race… In little over 78 minutes, Underworld:Awakening is an uninspired action film loaded from start to finish with CGI violence and gore. No heart or soul to speak of and the Selene character, despite the storyline establishing her as a mother trying to protect her daughter, hasn't evolved all that much since the last two movies featuring her. Michael is only in the first minutes (I don't know why this character was practically written out of the series unless the actor had previous commitments), and mentioned here and there in the dialogue, but Awakening is essentially Selene in a war with Rea (who has a son played by Holden-Ried) who has kidnapped "subject two", daughter Eve for testing which could help discover a cure that stops silver from killing lycans. This is terribly important to Rea for reasons I will not reveal. Basically you get the same kind of attack scenes seen in previous films between werewolves and vampires, Selene right in the middle. The whole movie just goes through the motions, no depth or care given to breathe life into a tired series. I hope Beckinsale decides to hang up the tight leather suit as her character is as tired as the franchise by this point. I think the first two films were fun and had their moments, but there's nothing here I think that cries out as particularly memorable. Even the usual chase scene where lycans pursue Eve, in the back of a van driven by Selene lacks conviction. Selene finds allies in a young vampire male (basically a GQ model) and a human cop (whose wife was turned by a vampire and later killed during the purge), so there's help for her, but this, for the most part, is all about her taking out every foe that crosses her. The CGI werewolves look exactly like cartoons and the vampires (including Charles Dance) lack any real personality. You can easily skip this fourth film and not miss anything.

This second viewing this afternoon (a finish after watching thirty minutes of it the previous night) wasn't so bad. It meant absolutely nothing to me and I didn't really feel one way or another about it. I have no problems with Kate as Selene. The casting involved faces quite popular at the time, with the likes of James (at the time when the Divergent films were hot), Dance (thanks to "Game of Thrones"), Rea (still getting what he could from "The Crying Game"), and Ealy (quite a busy man in everything from film to television). But this is still Beckinsale's movie, through and through, despite introduction to a daughter who becomes quite important when evil scientist (and werewolf) Rea wants her as his constant experiment. Out of all the CGI action sequences, gore, and blood, Beckinsale still somehow manages to eek out a performance that shows determination to find her beloved Michael (Speedman; not in the movie despite his character's slight involvement at the beginning), bravery to face down both humans and Lycans looking to annihilate her, and resilience to thwart any resistance that would keep her from her daughter. Her daughter, though, proves quite capable of protecting herself in a CGI combat with Rea in werewolf form. This is basically a Rated R Gothic Pixar movie with actors occasionally included in all the greenscreen and computer effects. The aesthetic is true to the series...darkly lit, with grays and blues set very "overcast sky" in hue. I don't recall sunlight at all. This is very industrial goth. But Beckinsale in leather with guns firing, very serious and pale white with blue eyes...that I don't tire of. 2/5

*this felt very much like a few chapters in a book, #3 of a comic series of #6. It feels incomplete. 

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