I suppose that "director" Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) figured that he should have left someone else in charge of his affairs when he handed over the reins to the third installment of his Underworld series to visual effects guru Patrick Tatopoulos. And it's a good thing, too. Although the film is hardly the Citizen Kane of vampire flicks, Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans is just fun, flashy, fanged filmmaking. Before you bash, consider the fact that the most appealing character from the first two movies, Selene (the ridiculously stunning Kate Beckinsale), isn't strutting her stuff in leather this time around. Remember that Michael Sheen is not designed to be an action star; he's Tony Blair for God's sake (fortunately for us, though, he brings the same quality of performance to something like this). Keep in mind that if you actually saw Rhona Mitra in Doomsday, you more than likely have tried to forget it (Lauren would like to comment that she rather enjoyed Doomsday). If you walked into the cineplex expecting art, you should probably have bought a ticket for Sheen's other film, Frost/Nixon. But if you're anything like us, you were just ready for more painful dialogue and more slick vampire-lycan brawling. And Underworld 3 delivers, even without the unbelievably beautiful Ms. Beckinsale.
In case you've forgotten the storyline of the blue-hued Underworld universe, let's review: vampires and lycans (that's werewolves, apparently) just can't seem to get along. Descendants of the same bloodline, one guy was bitten by wolf, one by bat, blah blah blah...all that gets boring and convoluted, especially in Underworld: Evolution. Snobbish vampires enslave hardworking lycans, a forbidden interspecies love affair sparks a war, and The Matrix and a few centuries later, you've got a flawless leather-clad Kate Beckinsale pumping silver nitrate into hairy beasts...and awkwardly hooking up with them. Round 3 of the saga (?) enlightens us about that whole Romeo and Juliet situation.
Once upon a time, a loyal lycan named Lucian (Michael Sheen) was the favorite pet of Viktor (the always enjoyable but confusing Bill Nighy), a vampire elder with a crazy indeterminable accent and a hot warrior daughter named Sonja (Rhona Mitra, who's just a skanky Kate). Because dirty, tough, aristocratic chicks and dirty, long-haired, pixie-faced slave boys are destined to have sex in weird places and start all kinds of trouble, Sonja and Lucian sneak off to the strangest of locales to enjoy some incomprehensible intercourse. (There are no words to describe this moment. Uncontrollable laughter is really the only appropriate response to hook-ups as absurd as this one.) Which is really bad, to say the least. As it turns out, Viktor's a big racist jerk who doesn't even want Lucian checking out his little girl, much less impregnating her with that "abomination" he rambled on and on and ON about in the first movie.
Anyway, Lucian screws up one day by lycaning out in an effort to save Sonja and lands himself in werewolf jail with a few lashes to boot. After his years of laboring as a day-time guardian of the undead, it's little wonder that Lucian gets so pissed and decides to head up a lycan revolution and try to take Sonja away from the vampire stronghold. Since Michael Sheen's one hell of an actor, he's shockingly convincing as the leader of the rebel forces AND as a romantic lead, even in the context of bloodsuckers and shapeshifters. Trading ultraviolet bullets and silver nitrate rounds for swords and claws, the battling clans manage to tone down the Matrix-ness of it all and give us some good medieval fight scenes the way William Wallace likes them.
If you saw Underworld and recall the flashbacks, you know how things go down between poor sweet Lucian and his ladylove, so I won't bother killing the ending that, technically, you should know, anyway. Let it suffice to say that centuries-long wars don't start with happy endings.
As indicated before, this silly, violent flick is not intended for movie snobs. It's Oscar season, and if that's what you're into, you have options. But for those of us who just want to hear Bill Nighy dither about betrayal (count how many times you hear that word) and Michael Sheen holler about slavery, it doesn't really get much better than this one. The sword-slinging, form-changing, blood-spurting fun has officially begun, folks.
-Katie
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment