Underworld

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I and a thousand other gamers thought it was based off of the World of Darkness (WOD), published by White Wolf. In short, the World of Darkness is like our world only, uh, darker. And grittier. And full of angst.

Vampires and werewolves dominate the WOD. There's changelings, wraiths, and demons too. Normal humans? They're pretty much cattle.

Vampires and werewolves don't get along. Vampires are city folk, werewolves are country folk. Vampires like to be clean cut, werewolves like long hair and scruffy beards. Vampires hang out in old mansions drinking blood out of champagne glasses, werewolves beat the crap out of each other for fun in subway tunnels. Get the idea?

Not surprisingly, vampires are "winning" the war. Three elders oversee the vampire race (at least, in Europe), and one is awakened every so many centuries to lead. The movie takes place in the interim between vampire elder shifts. Kraven, the intermin vampire leader, is a turncoat who makes a deal with Lucian, the werewolf leader. Collectively, they intend to create an "Abomination" -- a serum that will turn Lucian into a werewolf/vampire hybrid. All other attempts to create such a hybrid have failed, but since vampires and werewolves supposedly share a common ancestor, mixing the two lines shouldn't be impossible...

Enter Michael Corvin, who has the gene to transform into a vampire/werewolf hybrid. A Wampire? A Verwolf? A Vampwolf? Nobody knows, but he looks like Nightcrawler when the transformation is through.

But I'm skipping ahead. Somewhere in all this messy plot is Selene, a Death-Dealer. Death-Dealers deal death to werewolves (duh). Of all the stupid names, "Death Dealer" has to be the worst. That's right up there with calling your fighter a "Sword Wielder" or your cleric "Healing Guy."

Selene (played by Kate Beckinsale) has a few things going for her. For one, she's hot. For another, she wields two automatic pistols. And for a third, she's a vampire. This makes her the goddess of all geek fantasies.

Am I oversharing? Ahem.

Selene was turned into a vampire by Viktor, one of the three elders. She is loyal to him (like a daughter to a father, the movie's VERY clear that it's not sexual). Only, it turns out Viktor killed her parents before turning her.

So for the most part, this movie is about a big build up to a mano-a-mano battle between Viktor the Elder Vampire and Michael the Half-Vampire/Half-Werewolf. Follow so far?

There's a few problems with the movie, not the least of which is that the sound was cranked up to eardrum twanging levels. I spoke with my parents, who also saw this movie, and they had the same complaint. This probably has to do with the enormous amounts of gunfire that place throughout the film.

Despite the completely unrealistic combat scenes, the movie seems to take great pride in showing characters reload their weapons. This is a little odd, as the automatic pistols themselves are fantastic conventions. Why show this at all?

Because on some level, it's as much about Gun Fu as it is about vampires and werewolves. Selene runs around in PVC firing at werewolves. She does that for most of the movie. There's not a whole lot of room for pacing, but a good Gun Fu movie knows that it has to give the audience a break. What better way than to reload a weapon?

The reloading -- and the infatuation the director has with filming it -- made me think of Equilibrium, the greatest gun flick of all time. Just as people compared Equlibrium to the Matrix (an unfair comparison), Underworld is a lot like Equilibrium meets Dark City. There's unbelievable shootouts, the main character is a death dealing machine (sort of like Equilibrium's Grammaton Clerics), everybody dresses in black, it's flimed with a gray lense, and the movie is about bucking the rules for love -- of one's family and of one's self.

Underworld also takes for granted, probably due to time contraints, that we all know what vampires and werewolves are. Which is funny. While they are definitely recognizable characters, they are not necessarily recognized the same way by the same generation.

Take, for example, my mother's interpretation of the movie. She was shocked that 1) vampires could bear children, 2) Selene could see herself in her reflection, 3) vampires displayed no vulnerability to water. And yet, they can leap onto ceilings and cling to them like spiders. I took all of this in stride, because I'm accustomed to the "de-fanging" of Anne Rice's vampires. This is now the fourth generation vampire: Nosferatu -> Dracula -> Lestat -> Selene. What you end up with are pale, superstrong, pretty people with fangs. They don't even drink blood. The vampires figured out how to clone it.

Which really makes the vampires the good guys. In comparison, the werewolves are dirty, violent, and come off as more than a little churlish. They're the lower class to the vampire upper class, and indeed, werewolves were the servants of vampires. So everybody wants to be a vampire and nobody really wants to be a werewolf.

Just like the evolution of vampires, werewolves have evolved. They no longer need to change during a full moon. Not only that, their organs regenerate. And they can run along walls and ceilings (not sure where that came from). Lon Chaney, Jr., if you could only see your progeny now!

The movie drags in parts, but perks up near the end with the titanic battle between Viktor and Michael. Unfortunately, Michael isn't given much to do other than freak out. His character development is almost nil in comparison to say, Selene, who gets to cry and pout and the aforementioned blowing the crap out of werewolves.

I liked Underworld, but it's because I'm biased. I also like the idea of the World of Darkness that the creators no doubt abhor -- Gun Fu style, monsters using their superhuman abilities to blow each other up. I mean, who doesn't like that?

This movie is violent and a little gory. Vampires and werewolves are not kiddie fare anymore!