underworld

I have one major issue with the franchise as a whole, but first off some quick thoughts about each movie.

UNDERWORLD (2003)
The biggest problem the first movie has is that it is just way too long. It's two hours long and could easily be 20 to 30 minutes shorter than it is. There are a ton of scenes in it that just drag on way too long and could be cut in half and absolutely nothing of value would be lost. Other than that it's... okay. Bill Nighy as Viktor is a really fantastic performance that stands out, especially since pretty much everyone else is so flat. It's too bad that they kill him by the end of the movie though, whoops. It's one of the two best Underworld movies but I'm not really sure that's saying much.

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION (2006)
The other of the two best Underworld movies. It might be the best, actually. The thing is, there is barely anything remarkable about this movie. It is the one that, by far, I remember the least. I don't have much to talk shit about it but also I can't think of much praise for it. I guess there is that one part where Selene throws a guy into the blades of a helicopter and that's pretty good.

UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS (2009)
The most unnecessary of the five movies. Every major plot point in this movie is talked about in the first two movies so if you were paying attention during those (which, I wouldn't blame you if you weren't) then you already know what happens in this movie before it starts. So the movie being kind of bad the entire way through and being completely boring is really just a one-two punch of shit garbage.

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012)
At this point they started to lose track of what they were doing. The timeline jumps ahead because of reasons and a bunch of very important plot things happen during that time jump but don't worry they don't care very much about any of it so neither should you. There's actually some good setups for weird conspiracy stuff but the earlier movies don't build up to it and the next movie doesn't deliver on it so any bits of good in this movie are wasted. Selene stuffs a grenade into a dude's abdomen and then he explodes into a fine red mist so that was pretty alright.

UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS (2016)
The only good part of this movie is when Selene does a Mortal Kombat fatality to a werewolf and tears his spine out. It's super rad and every other part of this movie is awful garbage. Important plot things happened between the last movie and this one but they don't care enough to explain any of it or why it should make any sense at all. Despite that, they continually reference it and it is the main driving point of the entire movie (and probably also the main plot point for the supposed sixth movie that might happen eventually). They tried to get another Bill Nighy-like with Charles Dance as Thomas but unfortunately he isn't as good. But whatever, that doesn't matter since he gets killed off halfway through anyway.


So this brings me to my main sticking point with the franchise. It seems like they just kind of hate women? Now you're probably thinking "but the main character is Selene and she's a badass Death Dealer" and yes that is all technically true but also she is pretty much never as important as all the dudes around her. Her most important moment in the plot is when she sleeps with Michael and gives birth to Eve (aka the walking plot device). So yes, she does get some badass fight scenes and kills some dudes in some very cool ways but there's kind of nothing to her beyond that.

There's more to this than just the nothing-ness of Selene though. In the first four movies there are barely any women besides Selene and I'm pretty sure that all of them end up dead (most of them getting killed for being traitors). In the first movie there's two non-Selene character. The first is Amelia who is made out to be one of the three strongest vampires but she spends about ninety seconds on-screen and is only alive for about ten of them. She doesn't even say anything! One of the biggest badasses in all of vampire-dom and she's barely even a plot point.This isn't even a very unique story. Most of the women in the series have stories like that. They exist to be traitors or love interests and basically always die. Maybe the worst offense of this is in the third movie (y'know, the awful prequel one) has a single woman character and she exists to be a love interest and die because of it. They try to make her a badass Death Dealer like Selene but in her one fight scene she seems pretty unremarkable and ends up needed to be saved by her big strong werewolf boyfriend.

It isn't until the fifth movie that there's more than two significant non-Selene women but even then half of them are traitors and only one of them makes it out of the movie alive. Semira is a Coven leader who betrays her Coven for no particular reason and is almost immediately overthrown and killed for it. Alexia is Death Dealer whose only contribution is being a spy for the werewolves and getting killed for it. Finally there's Lena who somehow manages to survive but it is at the cost of being a character because her only real trait is that she's a spooky ghost vampire.

I could go on and on about this, it's such a frustrating thing. These movies aren't very good. They're not the worst trash I've ever watched but there's not much in these worth watching other than a few cool fight scenes. They're supposed to be making a sixth one and I'm probably going to watch it at some point. There's also a PS2 game that I'm probably going to play because I am a fool.

Don't watch the Underworld movies.