February 17, 2004 -- “Underworld” is a slick action-horror film about a violent, long-running battle between werewolves and vampires. It is long on style and short on substance. There are lots of people dressed in black leather outfits and lots of impressive wire stunts. The endless gun battles, featuring machine pistols, produce enough lead to sink a yacht. The similarities to “The Matrix” movies, at least on the surface, are inescapable.

The cast is impressive and the performances are all solid. One of the world's great beauties, Kate Beckinsale of “Laurel Canyon” has the lead role of Selene, a vampire “death dealer” sworn to kill all werewolves because they killed her family. Scott Speedman of “Dark Blue” stars as Michael, a doctor who has been mysteriously targeted by both vampires and werewolves because of a dark secret from his past. Michael Sheen of “The Four Feathers” stars as Lucian, leader of the werewolves. Shane Brolly of “Impostor” and Bill Nighy of “Love Actually” play Kraven and Viktor, respectively, two leaders of the vampire clans.

The plot includes several odd alliances and some betrayals. Some secrets buried in the past (revealed by an extensive flashback scene) come back to haunt some of the main characters. While the film looks great and it features some strong performances, the story looks like it is missing some scenes that would have smoothed the narrative. It comes across as choppy and chaotic, especially at first, when everybody seems to be shooting at everybody else. It is hard to tell who is fighting whom, let alone why. The relationship between Selene and Michael is abrupt and unconvincing. That needed more time to develop. The script could have used some polish and some of the fight scenes were hard to make sense of. The style of the film is polished. The art design is sharp, and it was filmed in Budapest, which is architecturally perfect for the tone of this film.

I saw this film on DVD. The featurettes in the package of extras explains how the werewolf suits were made and manipulated. Rather than create the werewolves through computer graphics, special suits were made with complex remote-controlled facial features. The werewolf suits were quite effective. They made the fight scenes between the vampires and werewolves more realistic-looking. Although Beckinsale, and several other actors in the film, had not done fight scenes before, they handled those scenes well. In addition to gunfights, there are also sword fights and hand-to-paw combat as well. The werewolf suits were designed and supervised by special effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos, whose credits include “Godzilla,” “Independence Day” and “Stuart Little.” Academy Award® winner Trefor Proud (Topsy-Turvy) was the film's make-up artist.

One of the interesting things about this film is the rather close-knit relationships between some of the cast and crew. One of the lead werewolves, Raze, is played by Kevin Grevioux, who also came up with the original idea for the story and co-wrote the script. Grevioux has a degree in microbiology and used his background in genetics while writing the script. In his story, the existence of werewolves and vampires has a scientific, rather than supernatural explanation. Another actor and stunt man, Danny McBride, also co-wrote the script, along with the director, Len Wiseman. McBride, like Grevioux, also appears in the film. Both Grevioux and McBride are also associate producers of the film. Both Michael Sheen and Wiseman are friends of Kate Beckinsale. Wiseman is also a friend of Grevioux. Wiseman has a strong background in art direction. Wiseman and Patrick Tatopoulos worked together on both “Stargate” and “Godzilla.” Grevioux also worked on “Stargate.” As you would expect from a director with a background in art direction, the film looks great. It is the story that doesn't quite work on screen, but we live in an age when style often trumps substance. This film turned a tidy profit, and may well spawn a sequel. This film rates a C.

Audio Tracks on the DVD are English and French Dolby® digital 5.1. The version I saw was widescreen anamorphic with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Both the sound and picture seemed fine. It is a dark-looking film, but that was the way it was originally filmed, acording to the film's production notes. Director Wiseman specifically chose cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts (“The Importance of Being Earnest”) because of his work on the film “The Trench.” Wiseman said of his choice, “The Trench was very dark and I'm really into dark visuals for a movie like this.” Commentary tracks include director Len Wiseman, writer Danny McBride, and writer-actor Kevin Grevioux. Another track has comments by creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos, visual effects supervisor and executive producer James McQuaide, and sound designer Claude Letessier. In addition there are featurettes with the following titles, “The Making of Underworld,” creature effect, stunts, sights and sounds and a storyboard comparison with finished scenes. There is also a “Worms of the Earth” music video, trailers, TV spots and other items. The DVD I saw was a region one disk released in January, 2004. It rates a B.

Copyright © 2004 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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