Underworld:
Awakening
2012
D: Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein
**********
Pros: Super-Lycan design is step in the right direction,
Charles Dance briefly appears to class things up
Cons: Story, Characterization, Special effects, Action
What better
way to start Wolf Awareness Week 2014 than to finish off the Underworld series? I heard this one wasn’t as well received by
fans of the original, but the trailer made it look action-packed. I didn’t care for the previous movies or
expect much from this one, but perhaps if the action scenes were fun, I might
enjoy this entry as a guilty pleasure.
Unfortunately, this movie didn’t even deliver on an Ultraviolet level. What I
ended up watching almost made the first
movie look good. Underworld: Awakening not only fails at being a movie, it fails at the
dubious task of being an Underworld
movie.
I found the
plotline of the Underworld series
potentially interesting despite its flat characters, but the new movie seems to
press the reset button in favor of a more clichéd premise. Shortly after the events of Evolution, humanity has discovered the
existence of the vampires and “Lycans” (I refuse to earnestly use lupine
terminology to describe creatures that look like this) and initiated a massive
purge which wiped out almost all of them.
The “Lycans” are thought to be totally extinct at this point. Our favorite genocidal vampires Selene (Kate
Beckinsale) and her boyfriend Michael Corvin (a CG Scott Speedman) are captured
and placed in cryogenic storage. The
movie begins with Selene being freed and violently escaping a lab run by
Antigen, a corporation run by Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) that’s supposedly
researching a cure for the disease that causes vampirism and
“lycanthropy.” While Selene understandably
kills the mooks attempting to apprehend her, she later tracks down an Antigen
official (Wes Bentley) who helped her escape so she can interrogate and murder
him. Now this guy didn’t have her best
intentions in mind, but it’s good to see that this is the same Selene we know
and love.
Selene is
estranged from Michael, but she has some limited link to him through visions,
because apparently having a prophecy in the first movie wasn’t enough. Eventually she meets a young girl who does
not act like a young girl named Eve (India Eisley) and a vampire named David
(Theo James). The group is attacked by
“Lycans” and Eve is injured. They take
her to David’s coven where they meet his father Thomas (Charles Dance,
reminding me that I would rather be watching Game of Thrones). Thomas
blames Selene for the status quo but
they are allowed to treat Eve by giving her blood to drink for the first time. At some point Selene finds out that Eve is
the genetically-engineered offspring of herself and Michael, and we have some
angst over this. The coven is attacked
by an army of “Lycans” including one “Super Lycan,” looking for Eve, who is
handed over to them by Thomas in exchange for a ceasefire.
It’s soon
revealed that Dr. Lane is secretly a “Lycan” (possibly as an homage to Rea’s
role as a werewolf in The Company of Wolves) along with many of his followers, and the “cure” he’s looking for
is actually a serum designed to make his kind immune to silver. Obviously, Eve’s DNA holds the key to this
discovery, making the movie even more clichéd.
We now have a situation in which the “Lycans” have the upper hand in the
battle against the vampires. As I pointed out before, it made no sense for them to be the underdogs in the first
movie because their immunity to daylight is a massive advantage that would
allow them to blend in with human society, as they are doing now. Unfortunately, turning the “Lycans” into
villains completely ignores the whole point of the series, in which Selene
finds out that they were fighting the good fight the whole time. The closing narration of this movie even
reinforces this heresy further:
“Though the world has changed, our enemy
remains the same.
The Lycans will rebuild. And will hunt for
her father as they did for her.
But as they grow stronger, so will we.
The Vampire coven will not survive this
world, we will reclaim it.”
Wow, seems we learned no moral lesson whatsoever from the
previous movies, and it turns out racial violence is A-OK after all.
It’s a good
thing I’m not a fan of these movies, or I might really be upset right now.
The
Super-Lycan turns out to be Lane’s son Quint (Kris Holden-Ried). As the primary guinea pig for this serum, he
has some extra powers. I will comment
that I think the design of the Super-Lycan is a vast improvement over that of
the other “Lycans.” He doesn’t look as
good as William Corvinus, but at least the design looks canid and is used on someone who is actually a genuine character in
the movie.
Before the
final rescue, Selene teams up with David and Detective Sebastian (Michael
Ealy), who lost his vampire wife to the purge.
When they storm Antigen, Eve is freed and fights Dr. Lane while Selene
faces off against Quint. Eve kills Lane
by ripping out his throat, and Selene takes advantage of Quint’s increased
healing abilities by planting a grenade inside him. During the battle Selene finds Michael in
cryogenic storage and quickly frees him.
When the fighting is done, her vision tells her that he has made it to
the roof, but by the time she gets there, he has already escaped. The movie ends with her vowing to find
him. I don’t know why Michael doesn’t
share this vision if there’s some kind of love link between them. You’d think he’d follow the link to her, but
I wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t want to.
I’d like to
say that the fight scenes were at least good, but they weren’t. Whereas the previous movies had competent,
but forgettable action, this one’s violence was defined by poor editing and bad
CGI. One of the strengths of Underworld’s visual style was its
excellent use of practical effects, which contrasted with its poorly integrated
CGI. Here, they ditched the former in
favor of the latter; they threw out the baby and kept the bath water. Quint’s transformation into the Super-Lycan
isn’t sold well by his performance, which is naturall if an actor is told to
react to something that isn’t really happening on set. His relatively cool death is also marred by
lack of good acting in the scene. Dr.
Lane’s death is graphically gory, but computer generated. CGI gore strikes me as quite a folly
considering that fans of R-Rated violence generally prefer it be done
practically. It’s too bad we’re more
interested in wasting perfectly good corn syrup on unhealthy and tasteless
beverages. I blame the 3D aspect of this
movie. I’ve always thought that 3D is
unnecessary for photorealistic imagery, making it like something you see in a
View-Master. It works okay with CGI
cartoons, though. This is why don’t like
this fad: it encourages filmmakers to purposely use bad special effects and
editing.
There’s not much to say for this movie. It ditches potentially interesting plot
developments from the previous movies for something far more clichéd. The evil pharmaceutical company trying to harvest a child’s blood and the final violent rescue of said child are very
tired tropes. None of the characters are very interesting,
with not much more than clichéd sci-fi angst tropes and momentary expositions
to do define their personalities.
Despite dealing with some motherhood issues now, Selene is mostly bland
and occasionally unlikable, just like in the previous movies. David himself seems like a hunk put in to
attract a young adult audience, and I hear he’s getting a spinoff for some
reason. I suppose this would be
upsetting considering the movie dispenses with Michael as a character and uses
composite imagery of Scott Speedman for his brief appearances. I personally wasn’t a fan of the character so
I didn’t mind too much. I may not be a
fan of this series, but I wouldn’t blame any fans who found this movie
disappointing. It manages to be a
bastardization of a movie series that wasn’t particularly good to begin with.
QUOTES
EVE: I dreamt of the day we would meet. Like a silly girl. You’re as cold as one already dead.
SELENE: Yesterday, I was with your father. He was only a
little further away from than you are now. I went to sleep. And when I awoke
the next day, I learned that, overnight, 12 years had passed. And instead of
the only man I ever loved, there stood a girl with his eyes. My heart is not cold. It's broken.
SELENE: You have no reason to fear us.
THOMAS: Do you think I'm foolish enough to take you at
your word? No reason to fear a Death Dealer who fell in love with a Lycan, who
murdered two of our elders, and who, at every turn, has betrayed her own kind.
EVE: [ripping out
Lane’s throat] It’s worse if you try to fight it. Trust me.
[Selene punches
through Quint’s stomach and pulls her hand out]
QUINT: I heal instantly
SELENE: I’m counting on it. [tosses him grenade pin]
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