CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012)
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(The Scene: An Expo inside a huge conference building, demonstrating the latest in 3D technology. The room is full to capacity.)
LEAD ENGINEER: Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself to be wowed. This is truly a historic day. I present to you the newest phase in 3D entertainment. Watch. (Points towards movie screen behind him. Aims remote control device at his laptop.)
(Voice from behind the screen—a man crying out— “Get away from there! What are you doing? Wait— no. No! NO!!!)
(A screaming man bursts through the screen, obviously having been thrown against his will. The audience gasps, and the man lands in the lap of a beautiful woman in the first row. The man quickly stops screaming.)
(L.L. SOARES and MICHAEL ARRUDA step through the huge rip in the screen, dragging a wheeled cart full of cream pies, which they promptly throw at the LEAD ENGINEER and his associates.)
L.L. SOARES (to audience): Yep, folks, the latest in 3D technology! So life-like you’ll swear it’s real! Impressive, ain’t it?
MICHAEL ARRUDA (to audience): Aren’t you glad you’re finding this out now, before you have to shell out the big bucks at the movies?
LEAD ENGINEER (wiping cream pie from his face): Not funny!
MA: Neither is paying extra for 3D.
LS: Stop ripping us off!
(Audience applauds)
MA: Nicely said. Let’s go review our movie. (They leave Expo and head out onto the street.)
LS: I’m surprised you didn’t pick some futuristic setting of our review of today’s movie, UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012).
MA: That was one of the problems I had with the movie. The setting wasn’t all that vivid. In fact, I hardly remember it. These city streets will suit us just fine.
So, today we’re reviewing UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, the fourth movie in the UNDERWORLD sa—series, (Yikes, I almost said “saga.”) chronicling the latest adventures of the vampire warrior Selene (Kate Beckinsale), as she continues her fight against both werewolves and humans.
When this one begins, Selene has been frozen inside a huge laboratory in a state of suspended animation for the past twelve years. She’s being studied by a group of scientists led by Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea). Of course, if she were to remain in a frozen state, we wouldn’t have a movie, and so she awakens, kills a bunch of humans, and promptly escapes.
LS: Actually, this one begins with a future where humans have finally discovered that werewolves and vampires exist after the first three movies, and have been steadily exterminating them. So the vampires fight the werewolves, and both of them fight the humans armed with “ultra-violet and silver” weapons. Then it goes into the whole “suspended animation” storyline.
MA: So, yes, even after 12 years of suspended animation, Selene wakes up to find that the secret battle between vampires and werewolves is still going on, even though the humans deny they still exist. Secret battle? These creatures have been battling for centuries and humans have never seen them until now? That’s because, in this series, humans must be blind. Carnage is everywhere, but no one notices anything.
(In an alley behind them, a werewolf mauls a screaming man, unnoticed by MA & LS.)
Anyway, the plot point in this movie is Selene discovers she has a daughter, Eve (India Eisley), a vampire/werewolf hybrid, who also escaped from Dr. Lane’s lab. In fact, it was Eve who awakened Selene from her frozen beauty sleep. Selene must protect her hybrid daughter from werewolves who want to kill her, humans who want to study her, and other vampires who want to give her up to get the werewolves and humans off their backs. What’s a vampire mom to do? Well, this vampire mom’s answer to everything is to shoot everybody in her way, which is entertaining for about one or two action scenes, but for an entire movie? I don’t think so.
I didn’t like UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING at all. To be honest, I’m amazed that an action movie can be this boring. I mean, we’re rivaling TWILIGHT boredom here. I know why that series is boring. Nothing happens in it. But here, we have a lot of action scenes, so how can that be dull?
LS: I was wondering that myself. This movie is about 90% action, and yet I still had to pinch myself a few times to stay awake. What is your theory, oh Jedi?
MA: I think it’s because the actions scenes aren’t imaginative. There’s nothing cinematic about them. As I watch Selene battle werewolves and men in body armor, I feel as if I’m watching a video game. That gets old real fast.
LS: I don’t know what it is. I normally love vampires and werewolves. But in these movies, I just couldn’t care less. Here are a few signs I noticed about when a movie with vampires and werewolves suck:
1) When the vampires and werewolves are rival gangs always fighting each other. Whenever you see this in a movie, run. It means there’s no horror aspect involved and what you’re watching is just a glorified gang movie, and not necessarily a good one. (And just guess who the “Bloods “are in this gang war?)
MA: I agree. I’ve yet to see a vampire gang vs. werewolf gang storyline I haven’t hated.
LS: 2) Whenever you see a movie where werewolves are referred to as “Lycans,” run the other way. They do this in the TWILIGHT SAGA too. It’s become a trendy nickname for werewolves in all of the worst movies. Obviously short for lycanthropes, the first time I remember hearing it was back when role-playing games were all the rage. And that’s part of the problem. As you noted, these kinds of movies seem more like video games than movies. Screw lame-ass Lycans – I want my werewolves back!
MA: The movie also tells a boring story. The whole rival gang thing again. Vampires vs. werewolves vs. humans. Who cares!
(A vampire and a werewolf step out in front of MA & LS.)
VAMPIRE: We care!
WEREWOLF: Why don’t you care? Audiences love vampires and werewolves! What the hell is wrong with you guys?
MA: That’s a big part of the problem. Vampires and werewolves make up so much of movie history. You guys have a lot to live up to, and you’re just not doing it.
WEREWOLF: Why not?
LS (to WEREWOLF): Part of the problem is you look like a 3D Scooby Doo, you goober!
WEREWOLF: Hey! I thought we looked scary in this movie.
LS: Well, at least you’re not just oversized animated wolves like in the TWILIGHT movies. At least you look like a cross between wolf and human – the way friggin werewolves SHOULD look. But you’re still pretty hokey and not very scary-looking. Let’s face it, in the UNDERWORLD movies, the werewolves still look incredibly fake.
MA: A bigger part is your writers aren’t giving you anything memorable to do, other than fight, fight, and fight. Yawn!
VAMPIRE: How sad.
LS: Now get out of our way. We have a movie to review. (Vampire and werewolf sadly walk away, hanging their heads in shame.)
MA: As I was saying, it’s a boring story. If you’re going to tell a story about these creatures, can you at least make it interesting? Give us some memorable characters, some decent motivations, something that will enable the movie to make an impression.
LS: Which brings to mind the HBO series TRUE BLOOD. This show is also about vampires and werewolves (and lots of other supernatural creatures), and yet it doesn’t suck. Why? Well, a big part of it is that we have memorable characters. We have believable motivations. We have three-dimensional people here, who we care about. TRUE BLOOD is the exact opposite of crap like TWILIGHT and the UNDERWORLD movies.
MA: What do we know about Selene? She likes to kill. She was in love with a werewolf hybrid. She has a daughter who she fights to protect. Okay, this isn’t bad. We know a little bit about her, but it’s not enough to make her interesting. Why does she like to kill? Is she sadistic? Wronged? She’s fighting to protect her daughter. Why? Because that’s what all mothers do? She seems pretty happy running around blowing away werewolves and humans with guns. Why would she want a teenage girl following her around?
LS: Her motivations are clearer if you’ve seen the other movies, but not by much. For me, the worst aspect of the UNDERWORLD films is that I like Kate Beckinsdale a lot. She first caught my eye back in 1998 in Whit Stillman’s indie drama, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. I think she’s hot as hell. I think she’s a good actress. The idea of her being the star of a horror movie should fill me with joy. But it doesn’t. Because these movies are so damn AWFUL. There’s just something about poor Kate that doesn’t work in horror movies. Remember, she was also in the 2004 special effects crapfest, VAN HELSING (which you just know would have been a 3D crapfest if it came out today). Wait, let me rephrase that. For some reason, there’s something about Kate that doesn’t work in BAD horror movies, and unfortunately that’s the only kind she gets to star in. And as long as the UNDERWORLD movies continue to rake in the dough, that’s not going to change anytime soon.
Kate Beckinsdale could easily have been one of my favorite actresses. She’s the complete package. But her movie choices have been abysmal. And every time I see an UNDERWORLD movie, I curse the direction her career has gone in.
MA: Wow, you must really like her.
LS (wipes a tear from his eye): It’s a sad business, I tell you.
MA: And why does Dr. Jacob Lane keep Selene and other vampires frozen for more than a decade? Why is he studying them? He’s looking for a cure? For what? Shouldn’t he be in DAYBREAKERS (2009) then? Why not just kill the vampires? Why not go into private practice?
LS: Because Dr. Lane has a secret. And it’s such a pulse-pounding, shocking secret that it has us on the edges of our seats……NOT. I won’t reveal the secret here, but most viewers will see it coming a mile away, and it sucks. Stephen Rea was another actor with a brilliant future ahead of him. This is the same guy who starred in indie classics like THE CRYING GAME (1992) and the underrated THE BUTCHER BOY (1997). A real actor’s actor. And now he’s in dreck like this. Hell, he was even in a very good werewolf movie once – Neil Jordan’s 1984 flick, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES. It’s just too sad to see such talented people reduced to such garbage!
MA: The other characters, including young Eve, Selena’s daughter, I just didn’t care about. And the werewolves and vampires, they’re like the Storm troopers in the STAR WARS movies. They’re there just to be killed.
LS: I actually liked Eve. She’s not very well-developed as a character, either, but when she gets mad she turns into something that looks an awful lot like “Demon Bobby” from the 1977 TV-movie, DEAD OF NIGHT (Mark Onspaugh reviewed that one last August). I thought it was kind of cool she didn’t become just another CGI werewolf.

India Eisley as Eve in UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING

"Demon" Bobby from the 1977 TV-movie DEAD OF NIGHT!
SEPARATED AT BIRTH?
MA: As you would expect, the 3D effects add nothing to this one other than a few extra dollars to the admission price. Sure, the movie looks good in 3D, but you know what? It would have looked just as nice in 2D.
LS: Dude, you saw it in just 3D? Lucky you. The best showing time-wise for me was an IMAX 3D version. Cost me $18!!
MA: Wow. I thought I had it bad!
LS: Did it look good? Yeah, sometimes. The 3D effects weren’t always evident – let’s face it, the 3D in this movie sucks – but it was on a nice big screen with Dolby sound. I’m sure that made me hate it a little bit less – but it wasn’t worth the outrageous effin’ price. Because a turd covered with bright lights and whistles is still, unfortunately…..a turd.
MA: I also wasn’t impressed by the special effects. The werewolves are nothing to write home about. Yes, I agree that they are better than what we’ve been seeing in TWILIGHT, but that’s not saying much. CGI werewolves look like cartoons.
LS: Yep. Although I have to say one thing here. There is a scene toward the end where Selene is up against a gigantic werewolf, and even though the monster looks fake as hell, I kind of enjoyed that battle. Maybe it’s the IMAX talking, but that scene rose above the rest for me.
MA: Yeah, that was a decent battle, but by that point in the movie I was scraping the bottom of my popcorn bag in search of un-popped kernels.
LS: And at the same time as that fight, the cool-looking “Monster Eve” gets to fight with Rea’s character (who has since revealed his shocking secret). I dunno, that whole sequence was the only time in the movie when I felt I was even close to enjoying myself.
(A GROUP OF TOURISTS approach MA and LS, taking pictures. One of them steps up close to them)
TOURIST 1: Yes, these are the two guys who jumped out of that 3D movie back at the Expo! They still look so life-like. I feel like I could reach out and touch them!
LS (slaps her hand away): Keep your paws off us, you damn dirty ape!
TOURIST 1: I’m not an ape! What is he talking about?
TOURIST 2: Bad acting, that’s what I say.
(LS and MA start throwing pies at them again, and they run away)
MA: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING was directed by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein. It took two people to direct this movie?? Are you kidding me? Even better, it took four people to write it. The screenplay was written by Len Wiseman, John Hlavin, J. Michael Straczynski, and Allison Burnett. Wiseman has lots of experience on this entire series, because he directed the first two movies in this series and received story credit for all four of them. That’s nothing to be proud of, let me tell you!
LS: Oh my God. J. Michael Straczynski helped write this? He actually has some talent. How the hell did he get suckered into this thing?
MA: I hadn’t seen any of the movies in this series until last week, when I rented the first UNDERWORLD (2003) to try to get a flavor for the series. That flavor was boredom. The first movie was also an uncreative snooze-fest. I’m almost insulted by the lack of imagination that goes into these movies.
LS: Lucky you. You only watched one other movie. I’ve seen all of the movies in this series. I guess I just always end up having to review them for some reason. And they all suck. They’re all boring. They all blur together and congeal like a giant blob of boring mucus. And I keep tricking myself when a new one comes out. I tell myself – hey, Kate Beckinsdale is in it. She gets to wear a form-hugging latex bodysuit. She’s one of the most beautiful actresses out there. How bad can the movie be? I always forget how bad the previous ones were and go anyway, and I am always disappointed. It’s just a revolving door of shame.
MA: Yep, the only redeeming value to UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING is that Kate Beckinsale is hot in her shiny costume. She’s got that Emma Peel thing from the THE AVENGERS – 1960s British TV-show going for her. She’s VERY easy on the eyes. Of course, everything in this movie is CGI created, so who’s to say we’re even looking at her real body? They just could have tacked her head onto an animated one. The things you think about when you’re bored in the movie theater!
LS: And, let me make another comment here. There is a scene where Kate escapes from a chamber where she’s been frozen for 12 years. She’s naked. She slithers out from a frosted up glass tube (frosted, so we can’t see anything worthwhile) to fall onto a floor covered in icy mist. In other words, she’s nude, but we don’t get to see anything! I’m not saying she has to show us the goods. But these movies are so friggin bad, it would have at least been a nice treat to see something that would have redeemed the ticket price! Throw us a friggin bone at least for sitting through this crap!
MA: So, yeah, Beckinsale is hot in this one, but she was actually so much better in CONTRABAND (2012) which I saw last week. That was a movie where she was actually allowed to act. Here, she just looks good and struts around shooting werewolves. But even her hot gun-carrying strut grows annoying after a while.
And I agree with you that Stephen Rea, an excellent actor, is completely wasted here as Dr. Jacob Lane, as well. It’s a dull role, and even someone with the talents of Rea can’t do anything with it. Nobody else in the cast did anything for me, as they all played like cardboard video game characters.
UNDERWOLD: AWAKENING is mind-numbing. I give it one knife, and it gets one knife as opposed to 0 knives because Beckinsale looks so good, and I don’t mean that to be a sexist comment. Her Selene is attractive and for a short while she’s fun to watch, but not for an entire movie with nothing else to offer. As both an action movie and a horror movie, UNDERWOLD: AWAKENING is an epic fail.
LS (imitating MA’s voice): “Beckinsdale looks so good, and I don’t mean that to be a sexist comment.” Look at you—Mr. Politically Correct. I’m not ashamed to say it’s not a sexist comment—it’s a friggin true comment.
MA: I agree it’s a true comment. I just don’t want to sound like I’m saying Beckinsale is only good because she’s hot. Although it doesn’t hurt that she is! (laughs).
LS: And—surprise! —I gave it the same rating. For the exact same reason. Kate is the only thing to recommend about this movie, and even that is self-defeating – because if people go see this movie for Kate, it will make money, and she will be condemned to make more bad movies that are beneath her considerable talents!
I also give it, one solitary knife.
One more thing. Sitting in the theater, watching this one in 3D and IMAX, it reminded me of the last time I’d seen an IMAX/3D flick, the last RESIDENT EVIL movie, RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (2010). And it amazes me that the more I think about it, the more it seems like it’s the same exact series. They both feature hot chicks shooting guns (in Jovovich’s case, it’s her indestructible character, Alice). They both have awful scripts and seem more like video games than movies. And both that last RESIDENT EVIL movie and this new UNDERWORLD movie end at a point where we are forced to endure the damned TO BE CONTINUED moment, where it’s clear the whole movie has just been setting us up for the next sequel. We’re like a room full of suckers playing the “find the ball under the cup” shell game, and wondering why we keep losing.
The only difference is, the RESIDENT EVIL movies are actually a tiny bit more fun, and I don’t hate them as much. But really, these are the same exact thing, except in UNDERWORLD it’s vampires and werewolves and in RESIDENT EVIL it’s zombies and the mysterious Umbrella Corp.
Which leads into the revelation that the next RESIDENT EVIL movie will be coming out this year as well. It’s just déjà vu all over again.
MA: Yeah, and as if to rub it in, the theater played the trailer for the next RESIDENT EVIL movie before the new UNDERWORLD movie started. Lardy-flippin-dah! Though I agree with you that the last RESIDENT EVIL movie was better than this movie.
Well, that’s it for now. See you next time here at Cinema Knife Fight!
LS: And remember, an inflated ticket price is a terrible thing to waste.
-END-
© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares
Michael Arruda gives UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING ~ 1 knife!

LL Soares also gives UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING ~ 1 knife!
