There are a few laws in cinema that one must always follow. One of those is the law of the contemporary vampire film.
A contemporary vampire film must contain at two least of the following in order to be put into production:
1. Leather outfits
2. European accents
3. Goth clubs
4. Lots of blue lighting
5. Ultra-violet light-shooting guns
Since Underworld: Evolution manages to contain not just two, but all FIVE, of these elements in the 106 minute running time (102 minutes for the Phillipines, lucky them) it must be the most successful vampire movie of all time. Move over Nosferatu. Back off, Bram Stokers: Dracula. No one can compare to the clichéotrope that is Underworld: Evolution.
It’s always a bad sign to me in a film when the opening 20 minutes of a sequel retells the entire story, both visually and with scrolling text, of the first film. I guess on that day I was feeling sadomasochistic. The basic plot of Underworld: Evolution goes as follows: Vampires and wolves hate each other and fight all the time. One crazy guy got the idea to cross-breed the races into a hybrid (Vampolf? Werepire?). The hybrid creature, named Michael Corvin (played by a wooden Scott Speedman), and the heroine, Selene, played by Kate “The Chaching Sound you hear is my Sony Pictures cheque” Beckinsale, decide to run off and hide from both the vampires and the werewolves from the previous film. The next 80 minutes is a series of glorious gore and explosions threaded into an indestinguishable plot, which was, for me, the most interesting part of the film. Even that gets boring after awhile, though. How many times can I see a vampire getting impaled and beheaded?
The answer is four. Four times.
4 dead vampires / 10
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