MOVIE REVIEW — Underworld: Blood Wars (2017)
TL;DR I want my money back.
KATE BECKINSALE. The woman is good at what she does, and what she does is star in the movies I like to watch. Though I can’t help but thing this time she went too far. Once again donning the duster and deagles as Selene the vampiric Death Dealer, the FIFTH installment of the Underworld series, follows her story. Or does it? I say that because the movie is all over the place with its JUMP CUTS. I’ve seen less JUMP CUTS in a shitty American martial arts flick. This movie tries to tell us so many things from different points of view, it spends no more than 8 seconds on each shot. It was jarring for me and I could not believe all the backstory they were trying to establish in this installment. Case in point: this movie is less about Selene, and more about characters and story from the previous four films.
Turns out this movie is tied to an extremely minor character in Amelia (Hungarian actress Zita Görög), one of the original Elders who died in the first movie and appeared briefly in the third movie — a prequel, Rise of the Lycans. Somehow she had a child with another vampire named Thomas (Charles Dance, The Golden Child, HBO’s Game of Thrones), and kept it secret from her own vampire coven by having the child at the mythic Nordic coven in the frozen northern country. When the child was born, she left gifts for him and had him raised at her original coven. She stayed with the Nordic vampires — a coven of peace and isolation — until she saw fit to return…which is about the time when she died in Underworld. That child grew to become Prince David (Theo James, Downton Abbey, the Divergent series), Selene’s protege and partner.
But enough about that shit, let’s talk about how Selene had a baby, forgot about it, found her again as a 12-year-old, and then willed herself to forget about the child AGAIN, which is why people are hunting her — for the child’s hybrid blood, which would make either side that has it invincible. Hence these scenes in the movie are from the Blood Wars. From the assumptions made about invincibility and what makes a war, this movie is already fucking up. How badly could you fuck up a vampire/werewolf war? Easy, watch this:
If the Lycans get the child’s blood, they can transform into…weird super-hybrids, with the height of a werewolf but the face of a human. If the vampires get the child’s blood, they become stronger, faster, tougher, and become daywalkers. Also, vampires gain their reflections back. In order to make this happen, so much backstabbing and double-crossing had to happen and be shown as JUMP CUTS. And yet somehow, the Lycans already have hybrid blood, because the lead Lycan called Marius (Tobias Menzies, Casino Royale) already has a sample of Michael Corvinus’ blood — you know, the same Michael Corvinus (Scott Speedman) that became a hybrid vampire/Lycan after being bitten by both a vampire and a werewolf in the span of three minutes, due to his unique bloodline — from when he killed him. This makes no sense, because Michael died in the 4th movie — Awakening — and sank to the bottom of the bay of one of the many cities they’ve fought in. This meant Michael was revived, then murdered, then drained by a Lycan for his blood, which he has been injecting himself with for a while. This means the Lycans already had hybrid blood, just not enough to give to every Lycan. There’s plenty of technology where the blood can be synthesized, but the Lycans want Selena and her daughter alive as the vampire Elders do also. As you can see, I am making mental stretches and leaps to make this work.
At the end of it all, Selene (now back from the dead?) ends up saving the day from the Lycans with her new Nordic coven powers of teleportation and blonde highlights in her hair. Then the vampire Elders that hated her for killing vampires and producing an abominable child in her daughter, is suddenly made a vampire Elder. She then has the cheek to claim the story is over. This movie is not over, because it ends on the most bullshit and unsatisfying note ever — the daughter she had been looking for suddenly finds her way to the Nordic coven. WHAT. This movie had a lot of good reveals (namely the Eastern Vampire Coven and the Nordic Coven), but was otherwise not a good film. It also had some unintentional Game of Thrones references peppered throughout. Not gonna save it, but at least there was something on the screen that didn’t get cut off in mid-observation.
CHOICE CUTS:
- The Nordic Coven. This commune of peace-loving vampires live in a frozen wasteland, and dress in furs, claiming the cold weather protects cold-blooded vampires from the warm-blooded Lycans. This gets proven wrong when the Lycans come in full force wearing jackets. To be fair, the Nordic vampires haven’t been out in a while, so they might not know what a jacket is.
- Whenever vampires drink blood, they preface the act with clams the blood is “precious” or “pure”, and then promptly spill it over their chin and onto their shirts. It’s a bad thing to do when you only have a limited quantity.
- Lena, the Nordic vampire that looks like a Valkyrie, was awesome.
- It goes without saying more than a few places were inspirational in the Nordic lands: traveling through a dense mountain region in the north, riding horses (WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE) to a cliff where the Night’s King once looked down on his people under the Aurora Borealis, to reach Castle Black. Tywin Lannister being in the movie didn’t help matters.
- When the elder of the Nordic coven says to Prince David, “Come with me I have a gift for you”, I called it would be a sword. Like clockwork, he presents David with a silver broadsword. “I KNEW IT!” I said aloud in the theater.
- The Eastern Coven. Watching 5 movies worth of Kate Beckinsale’s butt in leather, the fashions of the vampire world were amazing: from boring emo-kids in black, to more wondrous and upbeat goth/emo/club kids in futuristic clothes and asymmetrical haircuts. No dubstep, though.
- The warriors of the Nordic Coven. They came at the invading Lycans with crossbows and sword & shield attacks, with minimal armor protection — it looked like the entire coven was sharing a few suits of armor. They made up for it by taking on the werewolves in a melee battle.
- The girl playing the vampire Alexia is none other than Daisy Head, daughter of Anthony Stuart Head (i.e., Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
— previously published 1/7/2017 on Facebook Notes —
