Movie write-up posted one week too late, tsk.
I’d just like to get something out of the way first: since this is a vampire movie, comparisons to Twilight are sort of inevitable— not because I hold it as the standard, but seeing as I do have semi-strong feelings about how the “saga” bastardized centuries’ worth of vampire folklore, any and all available channels for this anger is quite welcome.
peacock. haha.
So yeah, Underworld: Awakening, the beautiful Kate Beckinsale agreed to don that corset once more, this time, under the directions of Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein. Hardcore Underworld series fans will take comfort in the fact that the director for all three previous films Len Wiseman stayed on board as one of the producers. It would appear that none of the actors from the previous films agreed to reprise their roles, mostly because none of the character’s story lines would fit into this movie’s plot, but they did add to the cast a handful of viable actors. Steven Rea donned on serious sideburns to make villainous Dr. Jacob Lane come to life, Michael Ealy plays the token-human-in-a-vampire-movie, India Eisley plays creepy looking half-breed Eve and Theo James plays goody-goody vampire David with serious Daddy issues.
The movie opens with a series of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am sort of sequences that gets the audience up to pace—that the vampires and lycans have been ousted and are being hunted openly by the humans. Selene and Michael are about to escape when they’re captured. The next scene we see is something very reminiscent of Resident Evil, when Milla Jovovich’s Alice first wakes up. And then we find that Selen’s woken up twelve years later to a very different place.
All in all I found the film to be quite entertaining—the action sequences were solid and the dialogue wasn’t overly cheesy. The story however wasn’t as strong as any of the previous movies; this one, I felt, we could’ve lived without but it does act as a testament to the strength of the series’ historical backdrop. Personally, I think that Underworld: Awakening didn’t have anything going for it since it didn’t offer anything new to the whole vampire-lycan war story arc, which, let’s face it, is mostly the reason why one would see this film.
It really was entertaining though, although it gets points taken out for being too short and for following S. Meyer’s failed biology logic (really? How in the world can a vampire give birth?)
Rating: 6/10
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And the movie world for 2012 has officially opened up in the Philippines. There’re too many movies but there’s very little time to watch them all, le sigh.
Also, I’m half-way through Book #2, Jane Eyre. I probably will post a write up of Book #1: A Clash of Kings sometime this week (hopefully).
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