Underworld: Awakening (and also Blood Wars) (2012)
September 8, 2024 4:44 AM - Subscribe
IMDB: When human forces discover the existence of the Vampire and Lycan clans, a war to eradicate both species commences. The vampire warrior Selene leads the battle against humankind. / Vampire death dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) fights to end the eternal war between the Lycan clan and the Vampire faction that betrayed her.
Awakening:
After vampires and lycans are revealed to the world, humanity attempts to eradicate them in "The Purge" (not that Purge) and Selene is captured and cryogenically frozen in 2003.
Selene is then thawed out in the startlingly damp future of 2015. Which is identical to 2003 except guns have some extra cardboard taped to them.
Scott Speedman is replaced with a child who sometimes has a lamprey eel for a face.
If you're here for the dampness, good news: it's a wet action sandwich, starting once again on the docks, then a disappointingly dry spell in a lab, but then we're back to sewers and dank mansions built adjacent to waterfalls so vampires can continue to bask in maximum wetness.
The plot is very Underworld: vampires, lycans, humans both evil and conflicted, a twisty plot that ends with a cabal of lycans who have somehow evaded detection and became science royalty doing science to make science-lycans. Selene flips around and shoots a lot, including an inversion of the first movie's floor-gun-hole move versus the floor of a falling elevator above her. Dopey leading man Scott Speedman is replaced by dopey leading man Theo James. Stephen Rea and Charles Dance take their turns as well-regarded actors slumming it up in this outing, both pretty low-energy after Bill Nighy's full-clout scenery chewing. Rea's energy feels like he lost a bet.
Blood Wars:
Remember that dynamic of the humans are now wise to vampires/lycans and they've been driven deep underground and near extinction? Forget all that! Nary a human to be seen in Blood Wars.
Only modestly damp, it swaps out wet for cold for much of the movie as Selene journeys from a cabal of vampires with emo hair who dress like they're in a Rammstein video to a cabal of vampires who dress like they're in Midsommar with Daenerys hair (Game of Thrones was super hot in 2016!). Lots of Underworld-plot jiggery-pokery as vampires betray each other and ally or fight lycans in varying configurations.
It all culminates in Selene having frosted tips and a really comfy looking coat, and ninja'ing a bunch of werewolves. There's a secondary character who looks like the wish.com version of Mads Mikkelsen that we dubbed "Shammibal".
Incidentally, why do vampires always just stand and watch while werewolves transform? The lycans just stand there and twitch gradually into wolf forms, while the vampires politely use what seems like prime stabbin' time to just genially observe the transformation before getting their fangs kicked in.
Awakening:
After vampires and lycans are revealed to the world, humanity attempts to eradicate them in "The Purge" (not that Purge) and Selene is captured and cryogenically frozen in 2003.
Selene is then thawed out in the startlingly damp future of 2015. Which is identical to 2003 except guns have some extra cardboard taped to them.
Scott Speedman is replaced with a child who sometimes has a lamprey eel for a face.
If you're here for the dampness, good news: it's a wet action sandwich, starting once again on the docks, then a disappointingly dry spell in a lab, but then we're back to sewers and dank mansions built adjacent to waterfalls so vampires can continue to bask in maximum wetness.
The plot is very Underworld: vampires, lycans, humans both evil and conflicted, a twisty plot that ends with a cabal of lycans who have somehow evaded detection and became science royalty doing science to make science-lycans. Selene flips around and shoots a lot, including an inversion of the first movie's floor-gun-hole move versus the floor of a falling elevator above her. Dopey leading man Scott Speedman is replaced by dopey leading man Theo James. Stephen Rea and Charles Dance take their turns as well-regarded actors slumming it up in this outing, both pretty low-energy after Bill Nighy's full-clout scenery chewing. Rea's energy feels like he lost a bet.
Blood Wars:
Remember that dynamic of the humans are now wise to vampires/lycans and they've been driven deep underground and near extinction? Forget all that! Nary a human to be seen in Blood Wars.
Only modestly damp, it swaps out wet for cold for much of the movie as Selene journeys from a cabal of vampires with emo hair who dress like they're in a Rammstein video to a cabal of vampires who dress like they're in Midsommar with Daenerys hair (Game of Thrones was super hot in 2016!). Lots of Underworld-plot jiggery-pokery as vampires betray each other and ally or fight lycans in varying configurations.
It all culminates in Selene having frosted tips and a really comfy looking coat, and ninja'ing a bunch of werewolves. There's a secondary character who looks like the wish.com version of Mads Mikkelsen that we dubbed "Shammibal".
Incidentally, why do vampires always just stand and watch while werewolves transform? The lycans just stand there and twitch gradually into wolf forms, while the vampires politely use what seems like prime stabbin' time to just genially observe the transformation before getting their fangs kicked in.
im so sorry but i liked these two as well
But yes, I can see why after getting smoke-illusion short-range teleport super speed powers Selene (and hence Beckinsale) kind of steps out of the category "suitable protagonists for the (doubtful) next instalment". Also, props to Detective Sebastian for being the only named human character in the whole series to get into a fight with vampires andwerewolveslycans, pardon me without dying/turning.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 8:58 AM on September 8
But yes, I can see why after getting smoke-illusion short-range teleport super speed powers Selene (and hence Beckinsale) kind of steps out of the category "suitable protagonists for the (doubtful) next instalment". Also, props to Detective Sebastian for being the only named human character in the whole series to get into a fight with vampires and
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 8:58 AM on September 8
Oh, do not apologize for liking these! I like that you like them. It means--to me, anyway--you see something I don't in these movies and that's cool.
posted by Kitteh at 9:07 AM on September 8 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 9:07 AM on September 8 [1 favorite]
Oh, same, they're very silly and I'm quite happy to see you tear them apart! I don't feel they're nearly as unfairly maligned as, say, "feelings trek".
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 10:58 AM on September 8 [1 favorite]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 10:58 AM on September 8 [1 favorite]
One thing I observed while watching Blood Wars: while I think we're at least in part supposed to be on Team Vampire, I really preferred Team Lycan! They had a lo-fi, scrappy, Occupy Wall Street vibe that really landed with me. The vampires were always "ooohh eeeee what if the lycans wipe us out eeeee" and my reaction was always "...and?"
I mean, I abstractly wish them well, with their floppy hair and electrical-tape cunnilingus dresses, but if I had to choose.
And don't feel bad about liking them! I firmly believe it's possible to both thoroughly enjoy something and poke at its silliness at the same time. My favourite movie is Buckaroo Banzai, for Pete's sake. I can honestly say we were entertained by these movies from start to finish, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other on-trend horror -adjacent cash grabs.
There's a weirdly sweet sincerity to the films; you can tell the people who write these really love this world and really want us to like it too.
posted by Shepherd at 4:26 AM on September 10 [2 favorites]
I mean, I abstractly wish them well, with their floppy hair and electrical-tape cunnilingus dresses, but if I had to choose.
And don't feel bad about liking them! I firmly believe it's possible to both thoroughly enjoy something and poke at its silliness at the same time. My favourite movie is Buckaroo Banzai, for Pete's sake. I can honestly say we were entertained by these movies from start to finish, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other on-trend horror -adjacent cash grabs.
There's a weirdly sweet sincerity to the films; you can tell the people who write these really love this world and really want us to like it too.
posted by Shepherd at 4:26 AM on September 10 [2 favorites]
I love all these movies!
posted by zeek321 at 2:35 PM on September 10 [2 favorites]
posted by zeek321 at 2:35 PM on September 10 [2 favorites]
I realize campy gothic soap is frightfully out of fashion this millennium, but I dig this entire B-licious movie series!
posted by fairmettle at 11:03 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]
posted by fairmettle at 11:03 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]
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Also, absolute laughter at how when the vamps go underground to hide, they choose wet drippy locales. Just...do these vampires need to be damp at all times? Like, even the science Lycans are dry and aboveground. What is your deal, vampires???
Blood Wars was so bad. I mean, lbr, these last two movies aren't exactly treading new ground, but Blood Wars felt so sweaty and desperate. Tobias Menzies is angling for Worst Wig award, you can see Kate Beckinsale looks different than the first two movies (she has had work done in the past few years and looks nearly unrecognizable to me now), Theo James is doing his best but damn glad he's gotten better roles over the years, and the lady who played Irene Adler in Sherlock is supposed to be a villain but instead gets oral sex from Shammibal in a series of delightful batshit gowns.
Len Wiseman, Kate Beckinsale, please no more. (I know Wiseman hasn't directed one of these since the second film, but he's credited as producer every single time.)
posted by Kitteh at 5:20 AM on September 8 [1 favorite]