Posted: 01/23/2006

Underworld: Evolution

(2006)

by Clint Fletcher

What the hell is happening here? This is the second time I’ve extremely enjoyed myself at the movies in the month of January. Can someone explain this madness? I’m sure it comes to no one’s surprise that I’m a huge Underworld fan. While the original has its benefits over the sequel, Evolution delivers the goods that the first one lacked… and then some.

Kate is back in black and God is she fine. The male audience cheered during her nude scene (a cheer started by me) and watched with wonder as she gets down and dirty with Scott Speedman in a storage container. But enough beating around her bush, lets get back to the movie. Evolution picks up on the same night the original left off. The last installment ended with Selene slaying her mentor Viktor due to his betrayal of slaughtering her family. Now Selene and her half-vamp half-wolf hubby Michael must prevent the chaos of the most powerful vampire alive- Marcus. My biggest complaint from the first flick was its lack of action. With only a $20 million budget, it was understandable that the action scenes were few and far in between. My friends and I always discussed that the fictional world in which Underworld takes place could be much more extravagant if the filmmakers were given a much bigger budget to play around with. Low and behold, our dream came true.

Not only is Evolution loaded with more action, the film moves at rapid pace and never stops moving. The characters are always on the run and they never visit a specific location twice. Every scene takes place in a new setting and there is rarely ten minutes in between without action. While horror/adventure fans will be pleased with its increased level of violence and gore, there is a downside to this aspect. The plot of Evolution is much weaker than that of the original. Despite it being much more complicated and full of minor holes, I still dug the plot line which mostly deals with events from the past, dating all the way back to Medieval times. As a matter of fact, the opening 15 minutes are completely dedicated to this time period with an utterly badass battle sequence between vamps and wolves. As far as the acting goes, all the bad ones either died in the first film or get killed in the first ten minutes of this. Beckinsale needs no introduction and neither does her ass. Scott Speedman needs no introduction and neither does his rock-hard stomach. And of course you can already tell the action is exquisite and kudos to the special effects team for coming up with new and innovative ways to slaughter werewolves. And the gore is extremely graphic and superbly executed. I had a blast at this movie and here’s hoping an Underworld 3 and 4 are coming in the near future.

If you’re a fan of the first flick, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth out of Evolution. Hell, if you like any type of action or if you possess a penis I’m sure there’s a genetic code in your DNA that forces you to check out this flick. I don’t need to promote it much since it already went number 1 at the box office and will remain that way for the next two weeks. But its surely a much better watch on the big screen. Just think of The Beckinsale Boobies in IMAX format. Just think! Now that’s surely enough for me to forgive her for the atrocity that was Van Helsing… isn’t it?

Clint Fletcher is an independent filmmaker and film critic.

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