Best movie ever!
... View MoreBlending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
... View MoreExcellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
... View MoreThe movie really just wants to entertain people.
... View MoreIf you're a fan of the 1st flick, you know it leaves us with a few juicy cliffhangers. 1) What happens to Kraven? 2) What's the deal with this mysterious Marcus character waking up? and 3) Do vampires have sex, because I didn't really get a good look in the 1st movie?All of these are addressed in basically the first 10 minutes. From there it's just sort of a new story altogether. But as I implied in the title of this review, the eye candy alone justifies this film's existence."Underworld: Evolution" is a sleek & stylish extension of the 1st movie, literally picking up exactly where the 1st ends. It has the same dark, gothy vibe and awesome wardrobe choices, but don't expect all the clever twists & elements that we saw in the 1st. This is more straightforward action.The themes of emotional betrayal, unexpected role reversal and moral plot twists that made the 1st movie so challenging aren't really here, since all the main characters are already defined. So this film is more of a linear, good vs bad story in search of the McGuffin (a term Alfred Hitchcock coined meaning the "thingamabob" everyone's fighting over). I'll forewarn you to strap your suspension of disbelief on tight because things get a little wacky. (Quick side note to the story writers of this movie as well as "Jaws 2" and a few forgettable Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks: a 300 lb. person, or shark, can't jump up and yank a helicopter out of the sky, no matter how cool it looks.) There are a few questionable items on the story/timeline, some which will give you minor pause and others which will make you say, "Wait but didn't that person just DIE?" But if you can overlook these it can be a fun ride."Underworld: Evolution" takes the first movie and adds more action, more blood, more cool gadgets, a little more sex, and takes away a few brain cells. But honestly it's still a fun flick. And like I said, how can you go wrong with KB's badass goth attire & the male cast having their shirts off for half the flick. A couple people's heads blow up too, so.
... View MoreI quite enjoyed the first UNDERWORLD movie, so when I saw that this sequel had a stronger rating, I was all for it, hoping for a decent action flick a la BLADE II. On the face of it, UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION offers exactly that, a tense thrill ride with plenty of action and heroics throughout. Oddly enough it fails from becoming a classic because it's got simply too much action, and action that's all pretty similar at that. Watching people fight with CGI monsters and heroes getting wounded but always coming back to life gets a bit stale after a while. I was also annoyed with Wiseman's colour palette; here it's all the same bluey-grey tones as we saw in DIE HARD 4.0, and it seems to be the only style of filming that the director uses. Why not branch out for some variety once in a while? Still, on the face of it, I love action and monster bloodshed, and this film delivers that in spades. There's a cool new monster on the scene, a huge and powerful flying vampire guy, who is well animated and frightening, and a briefly-seen "king" werewolf, huge and white. The CGI werewolf transformations are well done and have a nice stop-motion look to them that recall the old Universal classics amongst others. There are some decent set-pieces, including a truck chase and a cavernous climax, but it's all a little too silly and repetitive for my liking. Watching Kate Beckinsale pull ammo from behind her back where there clearly was none a moment before is just cheating the audience, and seeing her take down armed policemen in a forest, using her martial arts skills, is a little too been-there-done-that. Wiseman just wants everything to look cool without question, and the result is frequent lapses in logic and more plot holes than I could count.One of the silliest things about the film is the ludicrous back story. It was bad in the first film and even more demented here, with this guy doing something to that guy, that guy's family getting offended and doing something back, two different hybrid folks, blah blah blah. Who cares, really? There's no sense of even the family history that I saw in BLADE II; it just seems preposterous and half-hearted. The acting is also something of a detraction. Principal actors like Beckinsale and Speedman are sleepwalking through this, and I was annoyed when Bill Nighy turned up despite being killed in the first film (he's in a flashback here). Dressed in armour nicked from LORD OF THE RINGS, Nighy hams so bad I nearly turned the film off there and then, definitely the worst he's done. 'Classical' actor Derek Jacobi turns up to grab a pay cheque, and Beckinsale strips off for a silly sex scene which hints but shows nothing. What's the point, really? I have to admit that the special effects throughout are good, even if the situations are ludicrous. The film wins marks for offing one of the bad guys with helicopter blades (always a pleasure to watch and executed perfectly here) but uses the same kind of science-defying mistake we saw in Van Damme's SUDDEN DEATH, when a helicopter drops vertically and somehow its blades don't stop spinning, even after it's crashed. Good gore, bad plot; for what it's worth, I enjoyed this flick, but it's not one I would want to watch again.
... View MoreI did watch the first Underworld many years ago and I didn't care for it at the time but overtime I thought I would give the series another chance. All watching all four films I figure I start reviewing the sequels one film at a time.So now we move onto Underworld:Evolution which I might consider my favorite in the Underworld series and here's why.The plot of the film picks up where the first one left off centering around Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman) are on the run while also being hunted by Marcus (Tony Curran). We also get to learn about the history of the two factions. The writers made it work so those new to the series could better understand Also the action scenes in this film were very well balance and original for the film which could make it a stronger film in the series as some had said.The Music in the film sets the tone to match it to each scene. The score brings the emotion out in the characters which you could actually feel for them not all films can say that. The tension in the film you could cut it with a knife and the performances of the cast helps make it feel that way. The film just has a lot to make a enjoyable film and actually a strong sequel So if you're a fan of Vampire and werewolf films you will enjoy this one with tension throughout, good score and a character driven story this film is not one to be missedI give Underworld: Evolution an 8 out of 10
... View MoreHey, it's a Hope/Crosby road pic!... but without the humor. I mean *any* humor.The mythology starts to get a bit tangled here, as is usually the case as franchises like these go along. After a while I sorta gave up trying to make sense of what was going on and just went with it (I doubt it really effects your enjoyment--or lack thereof--either way).It's biggest sin is that it's just incredibly dull. Despite moving along at a brisk clip, the action is boring and repetitive and the soapy drama that helped jazz up the original is missing here, making this a rather hollow affair.
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