Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Review

I finally made it out to see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. I must say that having loved both earlier entries in the series, I had high hopes for this film. First of all, this was one of the few "horror" movies that I could enjoy with my wife. Our movie tastes are so different that rarely is there a film that exists in the overlap of our movie-tastes Venn diagram. Secondly, I love Rhona Mitra and I was very excited to see her in the character of Sonja.

As most of you know, this film tells the story of Lucian, a lycan destined for better things than slavery. Throughout the film we see Lucian's appointment change from a life rooted in slavery to becoming the savior of his people. Somewere along the way he falls in love with Sonja, daughter of Viktor who is the leader of the vampires. The problem is that the lycans are the slaves of the pious vampires and such a relationship is forbidden.

My feelings on this film are a little mixed. On one hand, Bill Nighy (as Viktor) and Michael Sheen (as Lucian) do a great job at portraying their respective characters. I love both actors and they did a great job portraying their characters. The film delivered the same dark style as it's predescessors. There was a good mix of CGI and practical creature effects. The only problem is at a few points, it was fairly obvious that the lycan running around was CGI. I also really enjoy the story and mythos on which the film was based.

One problem was that we face before the film even starts is that there was really no possible way to be shocked or surprised with the plot points because we already know exactly how it ends. I realize that this is a common issue with many prequels that come after the fact and deal with the same story arch as the other films in the series. The whole story in ROTL was outlined in the original Underworld.

The action was great. The battles between the vampires and the lycans treated us to great death scenes and lots of excitement. However there were parts where the story slowed down to a crawl.

After all that has been said, I enjoyed the film. It was fun. It had me rooting for the lycans against the "evil" vampire clan. As I said above, Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy did a stellar job. Michael Sheen, especially, played his character Lucian as well as he could have been played. Rhona Mitra was stunning and a great replacement as the beautiful, yet misunderstood, leading lady. This wasn't an earth-shattering film experience, but it was enjoyable.

I give this film a Buy for a couple of reasons. First of all, I need this in my collection to be a completist, but more importantly, I see this as a film that I can watch over and over. Not too heavy, not to light, but very watchable.

-- Mike