Cinemavenger

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Underworld: Blood Wars

If someone asked you if you were a big Scott Speedman fan, you'd probably reply with some version of, "Who the fuck is Scott Speedman?"  And you'd be perfectly justified because Speedman is a C-/D+ list actor best known for playing Michael Corvin in the 2003 vampires versus werewolves softcore action-horror mess, Underworld.

Speedman, who is barely getting enough work to legally list "actor" on his tax return, peaced out after the second Underworld flick.  Not fired.  No "creative differences."  He skipped gaily away into further obscurity rather than do another Underworld, which is exactly like a starving man pissing all over a perfectly good pizza.  That's how much of a shitsaster the Underworld series is.

The original idea wasn't half bad, either.  You know, in a trashy, post-Lestat, pre-Twilight, goth/emo, "No one understands me!" kind of way.  Romeo and Juliet with vampire Capulets and werewolf Montagues.  It was a guilty pleasure for the kind of people who didn't care that the vampires' eyes got super blue randomly for no particular reason, that it stole everything from bullet time and PVC catsuits to specific musical stings and labyrinthine mythology from The Matrix, and that the lead vamp, Selene (Kate "You Get Discounted Beckins At A" Beckinsale), never got nekkid.

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.  Fuck Underworld.  Give me some Underboob.

Then the sequel sucked more than ol' Dracula at a virgins-only nightgown party.  The third one was a prequel about why the aristocratic vamps and the lowbrow lycans (that's pretentious for "werewolf") hate each other so much, and setting it centuries earlier meant they didn't need Beckinsale or her big salary.  Kate's Speedman-like career trajectory - and the fact that she was fucking the Producer/Writer - led her back for the fourth one, which with 20-foot tall werewolves and Tywin Lannister (Charles "Let's" Dance) over-emoting such gems as, "How DARE you?!" should have killed the series.

Alas, it did not.  Forsooth, Underworld: Blood Wars is upon us.  I guess there aren't enough crosses, stakes, garlic cloves and silver bullets in the world to put this thing out of our misery.

Selene's back.  The vampires still detest the lycans and vice versa, and both sides are working overtime trying to destroy each other.  There's vampire high court infighting, and one of the lycans is more than he appears to be.  What's missing, though (just like in the last three), are the exciting fight scenes, the gory kills, the self-aware one-liners and any stakes (the emotional kind, smartass) . . . the only things that made the first Underworld at least sort of, kind of, barely fucking watchable.

I vant to get my money back.

January 6, 2017