Underworld: Evolution (2006)

• Year: 2006
• Released: 20 Jan 2006
• Country: United States, Canada
• Adwords: 2 wins & 6 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401855/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Underworld_Evolution
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/underworld-evolution
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, French, Hungarian
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Action, Fantasy, Thriller
• Runtime: 106 min
• Writer: Danny McBride, Len Wiseman, Kevin Grevioux
• Director: Len Wiseman
• Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy
• Keywords: vampire, rivalry, werewolf, forbidden love, gothic,

	6.7/10
	36/100
	17% – Critics
	72% – Audience

Underworld: Evolution Storyline

Hunted down like prey by both the Lycans and the Vampire race after the death of the ruthless vampire Elder, Viktor, in Underworld (2003), the cold-blooded assassin, Selene, and the powerful Lycan/Vampire hybrid, Michael Corvin, flee the Lycans’ lair. As the persecuted lovers embark on a dangerous mission to unearth the past of the antagonistic clans’ progenitors, the all-powerful original vampire, Marcus Corvinus, awakes from his eternal sleep, intent on retrieving a pendant of utter importance and finding his twin brother, William Corvinus: the first lycanthrope. However, blood has a memory, and no one can stand in the way of Marcus’ ambitious plans of world domination. Can Selene and Michael avert the undead megalomaniac’s scheme, and put an end to the evolution of a new race?

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Underworld: Evolution Movie Reviews

Regression

The first Underworld film was OK thanks largely to a decent plot and Kate Beckinsale looking hot in a all in one leather outfit which seems to have kick-started a genre of horror staples such as vampires, werewolves, zombies and Frankenstein as superheroes and super villains.

The sequel manages to entice Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy briefly and adds Derek Jacobi. I can see the casting agent on this one. Forget the Royal Shakespeare Company guys you need to follow in the footsteps of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and make horror films.

In this sequel vampires and werewolves battle for supremacy among the undead. Sultry Death Dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and hybrid Lycan Michael (Scott Speedman) try to untangle the secrets of their past and bloodlines. Jacobi is the father of two sons one who became the original vampire the other who became the original werewolf. The vampire Marcus (Tony Curran) plans to unleash a new force as he hunts down his brother entombed many centuries ago.

The plot is confusing and convoluted. The film conveniently gives flashbacks to the original film, useful as I can hardly remember much about it. We have plenty of fight action sequences set in a blue neon tinged nighttime but its badly choreographed with cheapo CGI.

The film suffers from horrid plotting and poorly drawn character arcs. A father who could had saved the world from a lot of bother if he forcefully dealt with his deviant sons. Yet one his offspring is happy to see off his dad.

This is a letdown from the original film.

All action, no brain; worth the one watch

I quite enjoyed the first UNDERWORLD movie, so when I saw that this sequel had a stronger rating, I was all for it, hoping for a decent action flick a la BLADE II. On the face of it, UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION offers exactly that, a tense thrill ride with plenty of action and heroics throughout. Oddly enough it fails from becoming a classic because it’s got simply too much action, and action that’s all pretty similar at that. Watching people fight with CGI monsters and heroes getting wounded but always coming back to life gets a bit stale after a while. I was also annoyed with Wiseman’s colour palette; here it’s all the same bluey-grey tones as we saw in DIE HARD 4.0, and it seems to be the only style of filming that the director uses. Why not branch out for some variety once in a while?

Still, on the face of it, I love action and monster bloodshed, and this film delivers that in spades. There’s a cool new monster on the scene, a huge and powerful flying vampire guy, who is well animated and frightening, and a briefly-seen “king” werewolf, huge and white. The CGI werewolf transformations are well done and have a nice stop-motion look to them that recall the old Universal classics amongst others. There are some decent set-pieces, including a truck chase and a cavernous climax, but it’s all a little too silly and repetitive for my liking. Watching Kate Beckinsale pull ammo from behind her back where there clearly was none a moment before is just cheating the audience, and seeing her take down armed policemen in a forest, using her martial arts skills, is a little too been-there-done-that. Wiseman just wants everything to look cool without question, and the result is frequent lapses in logic and more plot holes than I could count.

One of the silliest things about the film is the ludicrous back story. It was bad in the first film and even more demented here, with this guy doing something to that guy, that guy’s family getting offended and doing something back, two different hybrid folks, blah blah blah. Who cares, really? There’s no sense of even the family history that I saw in BLADE II; it just seems preposterous and half-hearted. The acting is also something of a detraction. Principal actors like Beckinsale and Speedman are sleepwalking through this, and I was annoyed when Bill Nighy turned up despite being killed in the first film (he’s in a flashback here). Dressed in armour nicked from LORD OF THE RINGS, Nighy hams so bad I nearly turned the film off there and then, definitely the worst he’s done. ‘Classical’ actor Derek Jacobi turns up to grab a pay cheque, and Beckinsale strips off for a silly sex scene which hints but shows nothing. What’s the point, really?

I have to admit that the special effects throughout are good, even if the situations are ludicrous. The film wins marks for offing one of the bad guys with helicopter blades (always a pleasure to watch and executed perfectly here) but uses the same kind of science-defying mistake we saw in Van Damme’s SUDDEN DEATH, when a helicopter drops vertically and somehow its blades don’t stop spinning, even after it’s crashed. Good gore, bad plot; for what it’s worth, I enjoyed this flick, but it’s not one I would want to watch again.

confusing story

For 8 centuries, there has been a secret war between the ruling Vampires and rebellious Lycan. The two immortal sons of Alexander Corvinus are Markus bitten by a bat and William bitten by a wolf. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) had killed Viktor and is going to be hunted for it. She only has hybrid Michael (Scott Speedman) to back her who is a direct descendant of Corvinus. She needs to wake last elder Marcus and expose the truth before Kraven has a chance to kill him. Kraven wakes Marcus but he’s too powerful for Kraven. Marcus finds out that Selene killed Viktor and goes on the hunt for her.

There is way too much backstory and way too much exposition. It drags down the movie before it could get started. The audience needs a scorecard to keep track of all the characters and all doublecrossing. The movie needs a simplified story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. There is a lot of interesting action but most of it is wasted in this confused mess.