Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Review

While I don’t think there was anyone that really wanted a second sequel to the Underworld films, let alone a prequel, the fact that Patrick Tatopolulos directed it to be a decent film with great werewolf-err, Lycan action should be commended. Essentially, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is the back story we’ve seen glimpses of during the first film. Lucian (Michael Sheen) is a cherished slave, forced to kill his own kind, yet is in love with Viktor’s (Bill Nighy) daughter Sonja (a perfectly cast Rhona Mitra).

That’s basically it plot-wise, simple, effective (in terms of delivering what fans wanted to see) but the overall product has a stale taste to it. First some of the positives were Sheen and Nighy chewing scenery up like a starved homeless man at a buffet, they’re both great fun, always are. Like I said before, the Lycans are really cool to see in action, more so here than in the previous films. Perhaps the budget was bigger or the CG got cheaper, but they look great in action. It’s probably helped by the dark cinematography (although at times, too dark) and that the director, Patrick Tatopolulos was a former FX man, so his knowledge of FX and staging them are better suited here than what Wiseman did in the first two.

Lycans moves fast, barely slowing down for anything, which is wise because most of this was sort of explained already in the first film through flashbacks. To me, that’s one of this film’s problems and perhaps it was inevitable, but there’s little excitement or interest in the proceedings because it is well covered ground. If you’ve seen the first film more than once, you’ll know about the blood feud between Viktor of the vampires and Lucian of the Lycans, how Selene (Kate Beckinsale)was born, and the birth of the Death Dealers. If you are new to this franchise, well, the film might be better because of that, for me it was stale. The script offered nothing new, it was predictable and it hurt it. I know it needed to tie in the first film and offers a clever cameo of a key character at the end.  While the film is decent, it’s just an unfortunate case of been-there-done-that.

At least on a creature-feature side, it works.

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