Underworld 2003
This one was way below my radar when it came out some time in 2003. I’m not a big fan of vampire movies or necessarily mindless action movies either, so I probably just wasn’t paying attention. But a friend at work bought the DVD and went on and on about it before finally letting me borrow it.
This movie delivers. It is nearly continuous action for two hours, but it doesn’t get old and for the most part isn’t mindless. At first I thought all of these people must be lousy shots, but then I realized that the people kept getting shot but it doesn’t really faze them unless they get shot *a lot*.
Roger Ebert complained about the lack of character development. I like character development as much as the next guy, but this is really an action movie and in this case the background serves the same purpose. It takes a while for all that background to come out and you are still in for surprises at the end. Ebert complains that there are no words for the first 15 minutes, just an extended chase and shootout. But that is pretty impressive to me that they could wait that long to even say anything.
It’s not a great movie. The actor playing Kraven, a lead bad guy, is terrible. And I admit that they are obviously trying so hard to make everything look cool that it can be distracting (though not nearly as distracting as Kate Beckinsale who looks absolutely fantastic in any of the form-fitting leather outfits she wears). Also the hunky good guy is a little *too* pretty with his hair always falling in his face like a young Fabio or something. And the shootouts do get old after a while. Not usually a martial arts fan, I was still hoping they would start doing judo just to break things up.
This is a very solid, largely mindless, action film that you can enjoy if you like this kind of thing. I’ll give it a B+
Owned on: DVD, Digital