Underworld (2003)

Underworld is basically a Gothic soap opera action horror hybrid. 

Viktor burned alive his own daughter through the sunlight because she dared to love a werewolf, Lucien. Lucien swore to get even by locating a “pure blood”, Michael Corvinus. Michael’s blood, when crossed with Lucien and Selene’s, will give him the power of both. Then you have Michael and Selene falling for each other. Viktor, an ancient vampire with a certain disdain for werewolves (they are servants, only good as help) would never allow his daughter to marry one. And history repeating, Viktor, looking at Selene as a daughter he turned when human (and murdered her family for their blood he fed from), wasn’t about to let her do the same with Michael if he could help it. Selene, told her family were killed by werewolves by Viktor, spending however long hunting them down and executing them. So the plotting is basic Gothic soap. Add in Kraven as this vampire now in charge of the coven Selene’s a part of, supposedly to be his wife, while he’s always using whatever negotiations he can with Lucien in order to prevent bloodshed (and get his hands too dirty) and war, if possible. Oh, and Erika as the vampire really wanting to be Kraven’s mate/wife, looking to replace Selene when possible is continuously brushed aside in favor of her much to her chagrin.

Judging by the response of many critical of this film, they find all of that boring. I don’t mind the plotting myself. But I LOVE Dark Shadows, so Gothic soap plotting is really up my alley. And I just love Kate Beckinsale, pretty much watching all these Underworld films during my 20s and 30s! It is unbelievable this franchise has endured for this many films and that Beckinsale kept returning to the role of Selene. I think she dug getting to be such a bonafide action star, even if a sacrifice of diet and discomfort in the tight leather suit and boots was always required of her. The pale skin, blue contacts, pearly white teeth with fangs, and that wet black hair; Beckinsale really cut a particular cultural look that differentiated from “Haunted”, “Last Days of Disco”, “Brokedown Palace”. Was she fashioned sort of out of the Carrie-Anne Moss’s Trinity mold? Sure. But I think Beckinsale more than eventually supplanted her own place in the horror genre as Selene, who dared to defy an ancient vampire (in the form of Nighy, who definitely had a way of emphasizing his words for the most impact when pressing issues important to his Viktor), cutting off half his face with his own sword for the man she loved (Speedman). But, for my money, it was Michael Sheen as Lucien, the very determined lycan making an alliance with Kraven in order to stop the endless centuries-long war, even as his nemesis, Viktor, had killed his beloved and made him watch. The added bonus of seeing what the one with blood fed to you has lived, that experience, really adds to how we can sympathize with Lucien since Michael is able to relive that horrible day. 

The blue and black aesthetic, the very metal and moonlike colors, that sense of grey within the black and white scheme produces a look that very much appeals to me. And bullets armed with a type of light source that burns alive vampires when hit and bullets armed with liquid silver to fill the bloodstream of werewolves and eventually kill them; how could I not groove to such creative means to get stylistic gunfire and pounded/broken structures suffering as a result?