Release Date: 1/23/09
Before Kate Beckinsale was hunting down lycans (werewolves) in modern times, there was a story of a vampire elder and his daughter who loved a lycan. This takes places many years before the other Underworld movies. Viktor is the leader of the vampires and has enslaved the lycan race with his prize possession being Lucian, the strongest of the lycans with an ability to change forms at will. His daughter Sonja has broken every rule in the vampire book when she starts a secret relationship with Lucian. This movie isn’t as entertaining as the others but there’s definitely some really cool battles. Plus it was interesting to see the back story that is mentioned constantly in the other Underworld movies.
This review is going up late because I felt the need to watch the previous Underworld movies before seeing the new one. I had never seen them or even cared about them. But recently I had heard from a few different sources that they are pretty cool movies. Now I would have to agree. In the first Underworld movie, there are many references to Viktor killing his own daughter because she was involved with a lycan. A few flashbacks are shown but no concrete story. Rise of the Lycans is the full story that we were missing in the previous films. But if you’ve seen the other Underworld movies then you already know how this new one is going to end.
Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen reprise their roles as Viktor and Lucian respectively. So at least we get well respected actors and some continuity to carry over to the other films. Bill Nighy channels his Davey Jones creepiness once again and does an awesome job. He seriously creeps the hell out of me in this movie. From his soulless eyes to his vicious hisses when he gets mad. But Michael Sheen is really great as the enslaved lycan. I’ve only seen him in Frost/Nixon so it was refreshing to see a complete 180 in terms of acting. He was the villain in the first Underworld but is the hero in this prequel which was a very cool change of pace for the character. Rhona Mitra attempts to fill the hot vampire role that Kate Beckinsale perfected. She’s pretty good, but not on par with Kate in terms of badass value.
The only problem I had was the time period. I know it was a prequel and they wanted to bridge the movies together but I was enjoying the gun fights and car chases in the other Underworld movies. Now its ancient times and we had sword fights and Braveheart styled wars. The modern time films had a better spin to them in my opinion. And its obvious that this new one had a much lower budget. The lycans looked AWESOME in Underworld: Evolution but they look like either poor CGI or too costumey depending on the scene in this new film. I believe this was at first going to be Direct to DVD so it definitely goes above and beyond in that respect but I’ll take Beckinsale blowing away werewolves over David Frost sword fighting with Davey Jones any day. Actually with those characters it sounds pretty interesting.
IMDB – 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 31%
Movie Wiseguys – 6/10