Underworld: Awakening (2012)

Directed by: Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein
Written by: Len Wiseman, John Hlavin, J. Michael Straczynski, Allison Burnett, Danny McBride, Kevin Grevioux
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Sandrine Holt, Theo James, Michael Ealy, India Eisley

Human beings have finally gotten wise to the Underworld populations of vampires and lycans, and all-out war is being waged. Squads of soldiers with fully automatic assault rifles and silver-laced bullets make this war such a slaughter that it has come to be called "The Cleansing."

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and her werewolf/vampire-hybrid lover Michael (a CGI cartoon) are caught up in this mess and are knocked unconscious by some special high-tech device and captured. Selene wakes up in a laboratory tank some twelve years later, still dressed in her same black leather outfit (ewww). Using her special vampire skill of "high-speed ass kicking," she breaks out of the guarded lab and hides in the city streets. Soon thereafter, she bumbles into another escapee — an 11-year-old girl who also broke out of the very same lab.

It doesn't take long to reveal that the 11-year-old is also a werewolf/vampire hybrid, and her relationship to Selene should be easy enough for most people to figure out rather quickly. Human beings may have thought they had exterminated the lycans, but many of the werewolves were successful in hiding underground. They soon spring up, hot on capturing the young female hybrid for some secret nefarious purposes of their own. Selene doesn't like this one bit.

Underworld: Awakening is the fourth film in the Underworld series and the latest in the sequential storyline (the third film being a prequel to the first two). While it wouldn't be fair or correct to describe it as "surprisingly good," it would be accurate to say it is "perhaps not as bad as you might think."

It is, of course, completely done in the super-slick graphical hyperbole as has become common in the series. Everything Selene does is "uber-awesome." This is true even to petty and minor actions. They actually have a scene where she puts on her trench coat — in slow motion. I can understand things like dodging bullets in slow motion, or beheading capital bad guys in slow motion, or jumping out of windows with fiery explosions going off behind you in slow motion — but do we really need people getting dressed in slow motion? It's just a coat! She's not putting it on any differently than anyone else would. I hate to think how they'd film her doing other mundane actions, like sneaking a sniff at her armpit after being in forced hibernation for twelve years while wearing the same tight leather outfit (ewww).

The overall plot is, of course, ridiculous — all of the Underworld films are pretty ridiculous — but it is also true that it felt more solid than the last installment. That's not to say the film makes sense all the way through. The main threat to Selene is from the Lycans, who want to use her hybrid daughter in some weird process that can make super werewolves. One of these werewolves has already been made, and it is a little like an '"Incredible Hulk" form of werewolf than anything else. The damned thing is probably 15 feet tall. Now, how is it they made this again? Oh yeah, by analyzing the DNA of the werewolf/vampire hybrid and injecting that into an existing werewolf. But, wait a minute...the werewolf/vampire hybrid isn't 15 feet tall! How can you take an attribute from something that doesn't have that attribute and give it to something else? That's like taking my own DNA and using it to give someone else wings, or a tail, or a third butt cheek. I don't have any of those things (I think), so it really shouldn't be possible for someone to steal them from me.

I do hate to pick on the old device of using guns that never seem to run out of bullets. This is an ancient failing that happens in many, many films. However, Underworld: Awakening takes it to a new level that makes it hard to ignore. Selene comes armed with two pistols, and I have no idea where she grabbed these things. Were they supposedly tucked in her pocket in the hibernation tank for those twelve years? These two pistols look like the common semi-automatic variety, such as the handgun used by real-world police; however, they have been modified to be fully automatic. Now, pistols of this size are only going to hold about nine rounds, give or take, depending on magazine size. A bullet takes up space in the gun, and there are only so many that can fit. A fully automatic pistol would empty itself in literally a fraction of a second, yet Selene fires these guns with abandon, literally spraying hundreds, if not thousands of rounds without reloading. For some reason, this bothers me more than 15-foot-tall werewolves. I can't help it. It's just silly.

One thing that mildly surprised me with Underworld: Awakening is the level of gore. It is far from the goriest film I've ever seen — not even close — though it certainly does have its moments of bloody organ exposure. I don't recall the earlier films being this gory. Look for decapitations, eyeball injections, shotguns to faces, throats torn out to reveal shredded larynxes, and other fine treats.

Overall, Underworld: Awakening is exactly what you think it might be, though perhaps not quite as bad as you think it might be. It is a little like walking into a hospital room and expecting to find a patient lying in a permanent vegetative state, and instead finding them awake and merely autistic. This is the beauty of low expectations.

This is a Day Two Review.

Rating: (2.5 out of 5):