Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Part three in the Underworld… world, brings the story a few hundred years in the past to a gothic land where Vampires rule. The countryside is over run by werewolves– no, not the half-human half-wolf kind, but werewolves whom cannot take human form. They are killing the vampire’s human subjects, and generally making life hard. One of the wolves has given birth to a baby in human form, Lucian (who’s adult character is played by Michel Sheen.)

Viktor (played by Bill Nighy [Depressing! - ed]), rather than killing the child on the spot, chooses to raise him, and train him. After seeing his strengths at a young age, Viktor decides that he should breed a whole race of Lycans, whom are much easier to control than the basic werewolves. They are a working class, whom through the whip are forced to do all the heavy lifting and protect them during the day. Lucian, though still a slave, lives as Viktor’s favorite, and quickly it is reveled the he is also Sonja’s secret lover.

Viktor’s daughter Sonja is played by Rhona Mitra. She looks a lot like Kate Beckinsale. Until the very end of the movie I thought she was supposed to be Selene, the character from the other two movies. To be fully honest I thought she was Kate Beckinsale. Which may have been intended, but given that her name was on the movie poster I don’t think I gave anything away that was too secret.

Before long the lycans revolt and war begins.

The movie’s fight scenes are choreographed reasonably well. Allan Poppleton was the fight and stunt coordinator. Poppleton has a lot experience in the stunt world. According to IMDB he been working in the business since 1992. Underworld 3 is not his first experience with vampires; Poppleton was the stunt coordinator on the 2007 movie 30 Days of Night. Unfortunately, there was a big problem with the fight scenes: the many wire-fu parts of the movie. Being really strong would not make you fall slow, or generally fight like you live in molasses. Big hits would cause werewolf and vampire alike to fly across the room with out any whiplash. I will say that Viktor’s fight was very well done. He fought like he possessed hundreds of years of experience, rather then just moving like an old man.

The sets and costumes were brilliant. The death dealers looked just like I imagined vampire knights would in the dark ages, a lot like dark elves. The setting was not only gothic, but well thought out, extremely intricate, and as one would expect a person whom could live forever would live. The weapons are amazing, complete with huge bolt throwers and the moest evil looking whip on the planet.

The CG and special effects were not very special. The werewolves were not at all well done. They had almost no face motion and did not move as an animal would. They felt like Halloween costumes. Worst of all the blood in the movie was always tinted really bright, almost glowing in the dark and was very distracting.

Luckily the story and writing, though not top notch, was well told and pretty entertaining, and with a few blaring exceptions the acting was OK, making the movie bearable.

As you can see, there is not much too love about this movie, but it is worth watching. Take my word for it and rent it don’t buy it.