The prequel for the Underworld franchise has been released and now we get to see the most anticipated origin story since Batman Begins – SARCASM – where we get to find out why Lycans and Vampires can’t get along. So apparently a long long time ago when there were knights and nobles there were also vampires and the vampires enslaved the lycans [so to protect them while they sleep during the days]. Then after Lucian [Michael Sheen] finally loses what little freedom he had, since he was Viktor’s [Bill Nighy] favourite and the original he bands all the lycans against their masters and starts a war.

Personally I’ve never really like the Underworld movies. I hated the first movie when it was released in 2003, three years later when the sequel was released I ignored it and then I waited a full week before I got around to watching this one since I wasn’t too interested in it. However, since I felt like going to the theatre because honestly it comes down to the fact that I enjoy watching movies on the big screen, and I can’t afford that kind of upgrades to my home theatre and I’d probably get in trouble if I knocked down all the walls to fit the screen in the house. So I guess you guys can prepare yourself to hear me use the “I don’t like it because it just isn’t my thing” excuse here.

When I left the theatre I found that I didn’t completely hate the movie. First I thought that Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy were both awesome in the movie and the only thing that made them suck was the bad screenplay. I’ve become a huge fan of Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen since seeing movies like: Valkyrie, Love Actually, The Queen, Frost/Nixon and The Girl in the Café, and I’m sure that anything they do won’t really affect my love for these actors. One thing that makes me realize how good Michael Sheen is in the movie is I didn’t know it was him until half way through the film when I remembered I saw his name on the poster. It might’ve been that this is first movie I’m watching and he gets to be all buff and show off abs and all. I mean who thought that the guy who played Tony Blair and David Frost was that fit. Bill Nighy was also awesome, and I like to make the joke “he wears the least make-up he as ever in a movie” but he just looks so cool in this movie and he continues to have that Bill Nighy fun, except as a serious vampire who will suck your blood to find out what you’ve been up to recently.

This brings me to one point that I did not like about the movie. So recently I’ve been spoiled when it comes the vampire genre. Late last year I got to see Let the Right One In and the HBO series True Blood which were both amazing additions to the vampire genre since they gave it a new look and explained certain aspects of the vampire lore that might’ve been explained before, but it’s awesome how they do it this time around. So to see vampires again only made me realize how horrible people tend to portray the gothic folklore in mainstream filmmaking. Nothing makes me cringe more than the scene where we see Viktor bite someone to allow him to access that person’s memories; and that annoyed me since it felt too campy in comparison to how the other vampire shows I mentioned earlier.

The film’s biggest failings are in the direction and the writing. The film is directed by Patrick Tatopoulos, who until today I never knew existed. The direction is pretty obvious; I think where he made the mistake was that he didn’t put enough action in the film. All the action scenes seem like they were too short and the action that isn’t CG was so short because they probably didn’t want to stress the old man that is Bill Nighy or something. I laughed at a ton of lines in during the movie, especially the speech that Michael Sheen gives in the jail “OR ARE WE LYCANS” these lines are just too hilarious. Then when the movie was over I saw big and bold “written by Danny McBride” only to find out later it is a different Danny McBride, who has only written screenplays for the Underworld franchise.

Overall I must say that this movie is not a complete waste, but at the same time I think it isn’t worth more than a rental rather than heading out to the cinema for it. Also if you’re fiending for some vampire go watch True Blood from HBO, it is so amazing that I’m willing to bet people that they will like it.

IMDB says 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 32%

I say 5.5/10