The Underworld series has the ingredients to be a first rate epic. It’s mythos involves a secret war of vampires vs werewolves, a back story spanning several thousand years with Machiavellian power games aplenty, larger than un-life protagonists, and copious action set-pieces. But it’s weakness is lack of characterization. Although there will be at least 3 films for sure (a prequel to the first two has been announced), character development hasn’t been envisaged as being part of the larger story arc. The writers have imagination to burn, the action is hot, the leather costumes are even hotter, and it takes place in a really cool setting. But so what? That should all be window dressing for the characters. And in this cast of monsters, there’s nary anyone human-like to be found. I can’t connect with them because there really are no hearts beating under all that leather. I’m sure the running time could easily handle another 10 minutes devoted to fleshing out the characters. It’s a shame that the scriptwriters didn’t intersperse the action with scenes to bring these characters to life.

Thus Underworld: Evolution has all the strengths and weaknesses of the first film – automatons navigate the superb action. We learn more “stuff” about the characters, but not how they feel about it. Opportunities for character development are swept aside by the relentless pacing. Poor Michael Corvin was particularly ill-treated this time around. He’s left to merely snarl and scratch his way through almost every scene, with next to no character development. A few days ago he was an average guy; now he’s a vampire / werewolf hybrid fighting for his life. And fight he does, with killing left, right and center. But he doesn’t seem to care. And in Underworld: Evolution he finds out in a pretty gross way that he’s mutated so much that he can no longer even eat food; he must now drink blood just to survive. But does he get the chance to emote about this? No, instead a few minutes later he’s getting all soft porn with Selene. Now Selene is babelicious, but hey scriptwriters, this dude has recently vomited his last meal across the table, and he’s gradually, irrevocably, transforming into a monster. If he’s going to be getting it on it won’t be with someone who’s available, but with someone who empathizes with him.

Selene too is left so adrift from humanity she may as well be a 2-D cartoon character. Let’s look at her character’s story arc. In the last few days she’s discovered that her hundreds-of-years war against the werewolves was based on a lie, that her family was murdered to guard an unspeakable horror, and that she was turned into a vampire as a pawn in the machinations of Viktor, her sire, come mentor, come lover. But she reacts to all this as if she’d forgotten to buy milk while out shopping.

Let’s stop Michael and Selene from being just superheros who drink blood to energize their superpowers. Michael is more and more repulsed by what he’s becoming. He never wanted to kill, and now he doesn’t want to drink blood either (wow, it is really icky when you think about it), but once the change happens he has trouble holding the animal back. He feels his humanity slipping away. Selene on the other hand, who has found out that she’s spent 500+ years as a mass murderer because of a lie, realizes that she lost her humanity centuries ago. But maybe your only a monster if you act like one? Her sense of loss about her humanity intensifies when her memories are jigged by the amulet. That’s right, once long ago she was human, and she had parents who loved her. She makes a decision to try to regain her humanity. Seeing Michael struggling with his own rapidly decreasing humanness, she forms a bond with him that is as much about saving him as it is about saving her own soul. They must still fight, but now they are victims of the violence that surrounds them. We can hope for their victory not just against the monsters they fight, but also those they struggle with internally. OK, cue the soft porn.

Marcus, the villain of Underworld: Evolution, needs a little readjustment. Marcus is introduced in the final seconds of Underworld, and his history is fleshed out in the opening scene of Underworld: Evolution. At first he seemed to be the most well rounded character of the series. I was really impressed with his love for his lycanthropy-stricken sibling William. Marcus seemed to be truly concerned not only for William’s affliction, but also with stemming the lycanthrope virus because it was a threat to everyone. Finally one of these creatures seemed to be motivated by emotions recognizable to the audience. But this wasn’t to last. Rather than keep Marcus’ motivations as misguided in his attempt to free William from his centuries of imprisonment, halfway through Marcus is instead inexplicably lumbered with the cliché of wanting to create a world ruled by vampires with himself as its god. Yawn. I much preferred the Marcus that was first introduced. He was a truly original character in this world of darkness.

The last character to need a more substantial treatment is Alexander Corvinus. What a wasted opportunity this was. Only introduced partway through Underworld: Evolution, he is given scant minutes before falling victim to patricide by Marcus who must kill him because “a true god has no father”. WTF is that? Alexander should have made an appearance in Underworld, with Underworld: Evolution expanding on his story. Here is the immortal who is father to both werewolves and vampires, who is the linchpin of the story, and who is shunted out of the picture faster than silver bullets fired from Selene’s pistols. And when Derek Jacobi is playing Alexander then surely there’s got to be a soliloquy about life, death and the burden of immortality. O for a Muse of fire!

At the meeting with Selene and Michael on the boat Alexander senses that both now battle to reclaim their humanity. Alexander tells them that Michael, who has been infected by weaker strains of the viruses than Marcus or William ever were, and as an inheritor of Alexander’s ability to survive sicknesses, may someday be able regain control of himself. But this certainly won’t happen before Michael kills again. Alexander says that Selene though, who is just a walking carcass animated only by a virus and by blood, will never regain her humanity. There is something that is lost within her, and no matter how hard she tries, she’ll eventually slip back into vampirism. He says that when their paths cross again, he’ll have her killed. Then Marcus attacks. Michael is killed, but his face seems serene.

The confrontation between Marcus and Alexander is not about the assumption of power, but about filial love. Marcus is angry that his father has done nothing to help neither himself nor William over the centuries. Alexander says that while he loves his children as only a father can, for all the destruction they have loosed upon the earth he feels it best that they have both been confined – and he wishes that their confinement would continue forever. Alexander admits that if Viktor had not imprisoned his children, then he would have had to have done it himself. Alexander also confesses that if Marcus succeeds in releasing William, then he and his team will have to imprison them both again. Marcus kills his father not because he wishes more power, but because he realizes that unless he does so, he and his brother will be hounded for eternity. The mortally wounded Alexander is left with no one but Selene to turn to for help in stopping Marcus, for only she knows where William is imprisoned. Alexander convinces Selene that his blood can help her regain her humanity. He trades his blood to Selene in exchange for a promise from her that she will re-imprison both William and Marcus.

So the final confrontation is a tragic one. Selene and Marcus both lost their loved ones to the machinations of Viktor, but whereas Selene knows hers are gone forever, Marcus foolishly believes that he can have his brother back. William kills the cleaner team, and the virus reanimates them. However Marcus, while realizing that the werewolves that William makes are beyond his control, refuses to believe that William himself cannot be controlled by him. Selene sees that the odds are turning against them, and that if Marcus and William are uncontainable, then even though it means breaking her promise to Alexander, the brothers must be killed. The reluctantly resurrected Michael joins the fray, and undead chopsocky ensues. In the denouement Selene gains the ability to walk in the sunlight, but she is still a vampire. Was Alexander lying, or did breaking her promise cause this? Selene’s and Michael’s journey of redemption ain’t over yet.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 12:17 am and is filed under Action, Forensic Analysis, Horror, U, winston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.