Underworld

Think Romeo and Juliet but with vampires and werewolves.

This movie has a great premise: Vampires against werewolves in a secret war that’s raged for over a thousand years.

The better the premise the bigger the let-down when the movie doesn’t deliver.

This movie has a lot going for it, some great supporting actors (particularly the leaders of the vampires and werewolves), beautiful cinematography, and a slick performance by Kate Beckinsdale as a death-dealer, a kind of vampire assassin dedicated to wiping out werewolves.

Unfortunately, the movie has a lot going against it as well. The male lead, Scott Speedman, has little to work with script-wise and has zero charisma on screen. The result is a character pivotal to the story that we care nothing about. With the relatively low budget, they probably couldn’t afford a big name, but casting against type might have worked to their advantage here. The other big problem is the script.

Through a brief bit of voice-over in the beginning we learn about the the vampires and the werewolves and then we’re thrust into the war. The problem is that we never get to see the vampires be vampires or the werewolves be werewolves.

Instead, we just see superhuman soldiers spraying a lot of bullets at each other. Neither species has very good aim apparently. Granted, the werewolves do change into werewolves (and it’s a nice effect) but it would do wonders for the movie to see the vampires and werewolves stalking a random human or two, if only to remind us of why we should fear them.