(2003)

review by:

11-07-03

Written by: Kevin Grevioux and Len Wiseman Directed by: Len Wiseman Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman

The war between Vampires and Werewolves has been going for thousands of years. The werewolves finally figure out a way to win: they want to create a hybrid supernatural creature, a cross between vampire and werewolf. Well, only this one guy (Michael) has the right DNA to successfully do just that. They convert him to werewolf all right, but Selene (Vampire chick) shows up to save the day. She spends a good part of the movie trying to resurrect her dead ‘father figure’ Victor, because he will of course know what to do. (I don’t want to get too into the plot because I can’t without giving it all away) This movie was originally called The Covenant. We had a chance to go see a screening of an upcoming movie. The guy was shouting “vampires vs. werewolves, a fight to the death in the this hot summer blockbuster”. We at Phantom Films just started laughing. He went on and on, and it sounded like the stupidest movie. We wanted to see it just because of how bad it sounded, but none of us could make it the night of the screening. The movie he was talking about was Underworld. Now we know why it was originally entitled The Covenant though, whenever there is a scene inside the vampire house, every other word is "covenant." It gets really annoying. Underworld has too much plot. There, I said it. They tried to condense about 4 history lessons into one movie; it’s like explaining Middle Earth and Frodo in 2 hours. ACTION MOVIES SHOULD NOT BE LONGER THAN 90 MINUTES. It’s been said that this is a Romeo and Juliet set up with monsters. I must disagree. Yes, the feuding families were there, but there wasn’t enough romance to categorize it as Romeo and Juliet. I think they just laid the ground work for romance in possible sequels. I believe the action scenes were some of the only good things about Underworld. Scott Speedman did an ok job acting, but everyone else just annoyed me. The transformations are awesome, that’s all I’ll say on that. I was entertained by this movie, but it drags. Had the excess plot points been cut, it could have been a "Good" on our site, but the climax came way after my attention was spent. So it’s just an "Ok". If they do decide to do a sequel, please please please let it be no longer than 90 minutes.

Rating