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You know you're in a decidedly strange time, box-officewise, when even the hyperactive vampire movie is pretty good. Assuming you can avoid David Spade, this is one of the rarest of times to go to the movies. A time when you can choose a movie at random and have a pretty fair chance of enjoying yourself. Try not to let it pass you by. ***

'Underworld' is a movie with a lot of flaws, and a movie that is somewhat unapologetic about the fact. That doesn't sound like a great build-up, but the thing about being unapologetic is that you have to realize the flaws are there. A certain bizarre mix (stylistically) of 'The Matrix', 'The Brotherhood of the Wolf', and 'The Crow', 'Underworld' knows what it is, and doesn't play at being anything else. You may be inclined to say that a lot of the acting isn't superb, or that the plot is ultimately missing some level of cohesion, but 'Underworld' shrugs its shoulders at you as a small gleam comes to its eye, much in the way an ice cream vendor would if presented with something like, "Yes, well, but it's not very good for you, is it?" ***

'Underworld' is a story about vampires, but it creates a unique mythology. The vampires of this story are involved in a war that has raged for many centuries. A war between themselves and the Lycans (as they are almost invariably referred to in the movie), that is, werewolves. It is suggested to us that vampires have the upper hand in the struggle, and what we really have now is more along the lines of vampires simply hunting down the survivors like, as it were, dogs. Our main focus in the film is Selene (Kate Beckinsale). The story opens with Selene, and a cohort or two, hot on the trail of some Lycans. It seems, however, that they are themselves hot on the trail of a human. Most mysterious. ***

The movie plays out in a somewhat standardized way (though not a vampire movie standard), with the main issue being the ferreting out of the truth about the past, and what started the war between the two immortal races. It's an interesting spin, and producing thoughts like, "Hmmm..., that's an interesting spin," is all this movie is really after. It's a raucous action movie dipped in 'gothic', with much fluttering about in spooky mansions, and really going after depth is just not what's going to be happening. Given the circumstances, "Hmmm..., that's an interesting spin," is a satisfying treat. 'Interesting spin', actually, hits a certain mark for this movie. There is a certain degree to which this movie shares an idea with the misunderstood, overly maligned 'LXG'. While 'Underworld' goes nowhere near so far as 'LXG', it is still very apparent that there was a similar thought process going on. 'Underworld' appears not to be simply driven by, "Let's make another vampire movie, moving along with the times, etc., now that we've seen 'The Crow', 'The Matrix', etc.", but rather it is driven by something more like, "What would those old vampire movies look like if the people who made them could step up to the plate now?" Instead of simply updating vampire movies in some utterly general sense, 'Underworld' tries to take the sensibilities and efforts of past endeavors, in some more specific way, and put an updated spin on them. It's a tricky distinction perhaps, and 'Underworld' holds back on this idea somewhat, not letting it take over completely (which is what 'LXG' did). ***

I was about to refer to the movie, or at least its plot progression, as a 'jaunty trip', with no lead whatever. It occurs to me that this might be a mistake. 'Jaunty', of course, is a word best reserved for films like 'Man of the Century'. To bend Benchley to my will, it struck me that I can't bring myself to say that a vampire movie is jaunty. It's not that a vampire movie can't jaunt. It's that a vampire movie oughtn't intend to jaunt, and thus, maybe it shouldn't be mentioned. Be that as it may, it has sort of jaunty feel to it. Sure, there's people gruesomely changing into werewolves, and the rending of flesh, and untold rounds of ammunition spent, but somehow the movie seems to move merrily along. ***

In the midst of our jaunty trip then, hero Selene has several run-ins with Kraven (Shane Brolly), the current head muckety-muck of the vampires and possessor of the silly name, because, of course, he is. Kraven has his eye on Selene, who naturally rather despises him. He's also a bit flippant along the lines of the whole Lycan problem, which irritates Selene. And generally, things are not all 'non-congealing blood in silver goblets' and roses in Vampireville. To add to the mess further, we soon learn that Kraven is actually only in charge temporarily, and it's a curious situation. For reasons left in the air by the movie (and to be fair to the film, what difference does it make?), the real leaders of the vampire race spend a certain amount of time in their own version of suspended animation, which somehow prolongs their lives (???). But, the real kingpin vampire, Viktor (Bill Nighy) will be awakened before long, and then the going haywire can resume with new force. ***

Now, it gets tricky. That human fellow the Lycans were following, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman), is going to be mixed up in plans the werewolves have for undoing the vampires. The leader of the werewolves, Lucian (Michael Sheen), may or not be dead (but then again, who isn't?), and may or may not be running things. Michael is also, naturally, going to become involved with Selene. Oh, and bitten by a werewolf, thus becoming one himself. It's as though you can see the movie lightly skipping down the lane, isn't it? ***

Ultimately, 'Underworld', while not great by any means, is a far better movie than it probably deserves to be. The plus/minus tally leans heavily toward the minus, but somehow, I suppose, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It's lacking that certain something that would push it over the edge, and I predict it isn't really going to achieve the cult status of its close cousin 'The Crow'. The main problem being that at some point or other just about everyone is the bad guy, and by making these moves, no one is really much of a bad guy. Shane Brolly (who at times looks bizarrely like Jeremy Sisto) aspires too much toward the embodiment of his silly name to really be threatening. He's not the guy wearing the black hat, he's the guy next to (and slightly behind) the guy in the black hat who sniggers a great deal. Michael Sheen has a go early on, and doesn't do too badly, but of course, he turns out not to be the bad guy at all. The real attempt is Bill Nighy, and he is an actor with a special place in my heart. He's been delivering the goods for many years, and his start toward American audiences has been a good one. He worked well in 'Longitude', and his two, well, jaunty frankly, roles in 'Blow Dry' and 'Lucky Break' were excellent. Bill Nighy, however, has one chance to make the role work here. I should actually say, this role has one chance to work with Bill Nighy in it (it's not his fault after all). That chance is to have Nighy in the role of the ubervampire. The vampire who comes out and scoffs at all this silver bullet nonsense, and all the shooting, chasing, and battling wossname... adventure. The vampire who almost lazily tosses aside any threat, full to bursting with such power as these other puny..., well, so on and so forth. That is, in fact, how he starts out. It's brilliant really. Just where the movie needs to go. But, in the end, when the plot comes to a head, Nighy is in there throwing punches and grappling, and it's just wossname all around. ***

It's actually not the largest of problems, but it is, I think, the thing that is likely to keep the movie from really taking hold. The movie has other problems as well. Beckinsale is quite good, but there isn't a lot of acting going on from any direction. Speedman is, whatever else he may be, not nearly so bad as you think he'll be, but alas, he is still Speedman. Many of the special effects do not work, and it seems to be the result of just not taking the time to work the problem out. Though many other special effects are of very high quality, you don't want to get images of directors looking at pieces and saying, "Well, good enough, let's move on." ***

Speaking of directors, you may wonder how Kate Beckinsale's fiancee got a job... I mean, you might wonder how a guy who only has two movies to his credit (and those credits are 'Prop Guy' and 'Assistant Prop Guy') landed the director chair here. Wonder nae further. But, actually, he does quite a good job. The editing might have been better, but the direction seemed right to me. We tackled things straight on. We tried a few clever ideas, though we also took the easy way out here and there. We also let things be when that would work. That is, letting the dialogue take a rest, letting the peaks and valleys of action make their way from page to screen without throwing in a bit more just to have more. When things are 'on', the movie is hyperkinetic ala 'The Matrix', but it manages 'off' time that delivers a realism of its own, as opposed to being so much filler while we wait for things to switch 'on' again. ***

Despite the flaws, and there are even more than I've mentioned, I couldn't help enjoying it. It's fast and furious, it's just not stupid. Okay, it's not exactly smart, but there's a difference. This was a fun, action movie that had no qualms with downplaying itself, but it never downplayed the audience. ***

On the way out of the 'almost full with target audience members' theater, the majority of remarks I heard were negative. This, as always, made me feel all the better about my largely positive impressions. It wasn't the same here though. When the masses pour out of something like 'Solaris' complaining viciously as though they had somehow been hoodwinked, you roll your eyes and sigh your sighs, but at the same time you can't help thinking, well, fair enough. You have no overly serious hopes, I suppose. Here, it was... startling. Are there no depths to which the masses will not sink in demanding utterly bad movies? Can no shred of intelligence sneak in betwixt the blood and gunfire? ***

We'll see. ***

It's 3.5, but I'll round up to four. It's a solid good time. The end of this movie opens the door for a sequel (as they all do). I rather hope they make a sequel actually, and I've never said that before.

The 'Underworld' DVD is an exceptional transfer, and the 2.35:1 aspect ratio makes for a solid viewing experience. I haven't looked at the full screen disc, but taking into account the frequent, relevant wide shots, I suspect that versions suffers greatly. This is definitely the sort of movie where a lot of attention must be given to the transfer, being that light is only measured by varying levels of dark, and it is clear that every effort was made to retain the quality of contrast and sharpness. Clarity of edge and shadow do not suffer at all in the widescreen transfer, and there were no flaws I could see by way of compression. The muted and 'blued' color spectrum comes through perfectly with no distortion in skin tones. ***

The sound on the DVD is just as good. Surrounds are nearly constant and wonderful, and the surprising attention to sound design makes its way to the home system as powerfully as it was delivered in theater. There are no flaws here either as far as drops or hiss, and the sound uses a nice range without problem. Dialogue, effects, and music all come through nicely.

I wouldn't say that the DVD is really filled with extras, somehow many of them feel too similar to me, but it certainly isn't lacking in them either. ***

'The Making of Underworld' is a roughly 13-minute feature, but the title may mislead slightly. It is not at all a poor feature, and delivers some interesting information, but it is somehow a bit removed from really being a 'Making of' sort of presentation. Cast and crew talk about the movie, talk about their experiences, and several clips run by us, but we never really get to a point where we are examining the thing in a way we would expect from the title. Considering this approach, the fairly short runtime doesn't manage to get us very far. Still, worth a look. ***

'Creature Effects' is again right around 13 minutes, and is again somewhere in the general class of either too long, or not long enough. We do get to see quite a bit of what went into the creation of the 'creatures', largely the werewolves, but the feature leaves us wanting more. The result is more like what we might expect from a five or six minute version, it's just dragged out. **

'Stunts' is obviously about the stunt work, and this one again sits at the 13-minute mark. This one is, however, quite a bit more interesting than what we've seen so far. We get a deeper sort of detail on the stunts, including what work various actors went through during production. We also get some well-planned 'Behind the Scenes' shots of the actors (mostly Beckinsale) doing that work, and learning how to be able to do what must be done to get through various scenes. This one also could have been longer, but it stands up better the way it is. ***

'Sights and Sounds' is a difficult creature to classify. Running just over nine minutes, this is some combination of gag reel, outtakes, and simple 'Behind the Scenes' footage. Definitely a welcome inclusion, it's nevertheless hard to describe. This is a feature that also was given a bit more thought than we might expect, as it gives images from a healthy mix of fronts. ***

Moving to the 'Trailers' section of the DVD, we have more in store for us. The full theatrical trailer is available, as well as two TV spots. A storyboard comparison is available, which runs about six minutes showing a couple different scenes including the opening sequence. It's worth mentioning that this has a much better flow than most such comparisons I've seen on DVDs, making it a more worthwhile feature. We also have a music video for the song "Worms of the Earth" by Finch. This is a pretty standard cut-in video which is largely a clip reel of the film set to music, but it has its clever moments. The song, unfortunately, is horrible. ***

The disc also includes trailers for: 'The Forsaken', 'John Carpenter's Vampires', 'John Carpenter Presents Vampires: Los Muertos', 'Resident Evil', and 'Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse'

There are two commentary tracks available for the film, both are very solid additions to the realm of commentary tracks, though one might be much easier for most people to get through. ***

The first commentary is given by Director Len Wiseman, and writers Danny McBride and Kevin Grevioux. Kevin Grevioux is certainly the easiest to recognize. He plays one of the main werewolves in the movie, Raze, and he's not doing any voice acting in the film. That's his real voice. These three play off each other very well in delivering the track, and there is a great mix of topic throughout. Wiseman is most inclined to talk about sets, the actors' experiences, and shooting in Budapest, while McBride and Grevioux aim more for the story and its construction. Grevioux wrote the original screenplay (and I mean first version there), and he sparks off some interesting discussions, especially revolving around how the film puts a purely scientific spin on the mythos of these creatures. ***

In a variety of ways, this is a very good listen, and a commentary that can truly engage listeners. Not the least of which is Wiseman's honesty with regard to his own thoughts on the film. He points out scenes that he still isn't entirely happy with, and you aren't going to find that very often. For one example, he points to the early scene where we see two Lycans fighting each other, and tells us that he really wanted that scene to show them fighting on all fours, more like dogs, but that there just wasn't any way to manage it. ***

Similarly, Grevioux and McBride give insights into how various scenes originally existed, and how they changed to fit better into the whole. ***

The second commentary track is given by three people from the technical side of things. Creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos, Visual Effects Supervisor James McQuaide, and Sound Designer Claude Letessier come together to walk us through what we're seeing. This is also a very solid commentary that is absolutely littered with great information. There are some noteworthy, potential difficulties though. For a start, two of the three have simply wicked accents, and that may take a bit of getting used to. Second, the commentary is quite naturally prone to tangents. Along this line, there is really only so much you can talk about, and when there aren't any special effects going on, we drift off, as we have to expect. The third possible problem is that despite the fact that this is very interesting from the technical point of view, an entire movie worth of it may easily get old for a lot of people. Much of what we hear is great, and the breakdowns of what we're seeing as we see it is a somewhat novel effort, but two hours of it is still a difficult chore.

'Underworld' is a very solid piece of movie-making, though we have to be willing to view it for what it is, and the DVD release is an excellent one. Technically, the release is far above-average, and there is a nice sampling of generally worthy special features, including two commendable commentaries.

Marc Eastman

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