Movie Review #3 Underworld: Awakening (2012)

- Fourth time is a charm?

Kate Beckinsale in a leather corset with latex pants running around killing things like it ain't no thang hardly seems like a no-brainer for great movie fluff for those who would be into those things. While I do agree that Beckinsale is a fine specimen to look at and her clothing choices are nothing to frown about, an actual plot wouldn't hurt to back up this little action romp.

The movie starts with Selene (Beckinsale) telling us what has happened since the end of the second movie (the third was a prequel so you missed nothing) and then they shove us 12 years in the future. I had thought THE FUTURE might be a major selling point, but honestly the world doesn't look that much different. A missed opportunity if I ever did see one in an action flick, to be honest. Okay future, what do you have? Lycans and vamps are all but extinct and humans now have the weapons that the vamps had in the first movie. We see some cops looking at a body that's been mauled to death, and Cop A virtually retorts to Cop B "well, of course it's a werewolf attack, how dumb are you?" while Cop B responds "I've worked here longer it's totally not a werewolf because." No, really, he gives no reason and walks the hell away. I am being punched in the face with sarcastic foreshadowing and it isn't very enjoyable.

That was the first bit of the movie and the story gets progressively worse from this point on. The CGI is great, similar to other CGI heavy action movies, the action was on the right side of scale though. It was fluid and focus on the action was possible. I'll always dislike the design choice to make the Lycans and hybrids a tinted blue and completely blue respectively. Along with both the Lycans and Vamps having bright blue eyes. I'm not saying the movie had to go with obvious and overused choices like yellow for beasts, black or red for vamps. But it is a point that gets to me, I just need answers to it and there aren't any for the choices they made.

Heroines don't look back at explosions either

Another large problem is that where I mention Cop B? Yeah, he's actually a main character Detective Sebastian (Michael Ealy) who is as flat a character one could ask for in an action movie. He lost someone and he, we are to assume, isn't very pleased about it, because ignoring the one scene in which he says he is sad, certainly makes the guy seem like he is breezing along life. Another main character David (Theo James) has touches of a stereotypical knight in shining armour. I actually didn't mind him, but his screen time is cut in half with the Detective taking Selina around town so it's another missed opportunity for some deep character development. Due to scheduling conflicts Scott Speedman was unavailable to play Michael Corvin and they used archived footage and a stand-in with digital tomfoolery to make it look like Speedman. I feel as though this may have forced some seriously unwanted script rewrites and the story suffers severely for this. Too much of David's parts seem like they should have just been played by Micheal Corvin's character. We are four movies in and it's silly to give us a new hero/main male lead.

Since it's the fourth in the series I feel it right to first judge it against the others, it was a little stronger movie than Evolution, and on par with the first, while coming up short against the prequel Rise of the Lycans which had a stronger support cast and story along with the decent CGI and combat.

Underworld: Awakening receives a 5/10

PS: If it doesn't work out for you with that husband of yours, Kate, you can call me anytime, just remember to bring the corset and latex pants.

Or you know, whatever you have lying around.