Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on January 20, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
A big problem with the original Underworld, to this reviewer, is that its vampires and werewolves didn’t behave like vampires and werewolves, but rather like refugees from a Matrix sequel, all clad in black pleather and spending most of the running time shooting at each other. The opening scenes of Underworld: Evolution, set in 1212 A.D., rectify this situation, as we’re shown the origins of the centuries-old war between the two species. More specifically, a bunch of freshly turned “Lycans” get all hairy and snouty, leap upon their vampire adversaries and bite their faces off. Once the action switches to the present day, the ancient bloodsucker Markus erupts from his tomb as a huge, ugly critter with giant wings that double as claws which are handy for removing the heads of his enemies. In their second showcase, it’s nice to see that this franchise’s monsters have learned to act like proper monsters.
One who hasn’t quite learned yet is Michael (Scott Speedman), who is now a hybrid thanks to his relationship with “Death Dealer” Selene (Kate Beckinsale). At first he can’t handle the fact that he has to change his lifestyle and adopt a specific liquid diet, but he has to learn fast ’cause he has to help Selene stop Markus (Tony Curran), who’s out to free his Lycan brother William from his thousands of years of entombment. Director Len Wiseman and writer Danny McBride, both encoring from the original film, breathlessly pace the action and exposition for Evolution’s first 40 minutes or so, culminating in the long-awaited-by-fans sex scene between Beckinsale and Speedman (or more likely, their body doubles).
It’s shortly after this point that the movie hunkers down and digs deeper into backstories and rivalries and age-old motivations—which, as often happens, suggests the sort of tangled plotting a group of ambitious role-playing gamers might come up with. The gist is that it would be really bad news if Markus unleashed William, who is just as much a super-monster as he is; each is the respective ancestor of their respective monstrous races, having both been sired by one Alexander Corvinus. The latter is still around too after all these years, also seeking to stop Markus with his supernatural special ops team; it’s never explained how Alexander’s sons can mutate into super-creatures when he himself can only apparently take the form of the great Shakespearean actor Sir Derek Jacobi. One is left with the opinion that one would never want to meet their respective mothers.
In any case, since the action revolves exclusively around the interplay between two other species to the exclusion of us humans, it’s left to the relationship between Selene and Michael to provide the movie an emotional core. In this, Evolution is fairly successful, since the two leads give earnest performances and have real chemistry, even as they’re frequently upstaged by the mayhem and plot huggermugger. The juiciest performance is given by Curran, conveying a real sense of menace under all his Markus prosthetics, which are skillfully created by Patrick Tatopoulos and his team. (The CGI monster FX don’t always work as well, though in a film of such heightened reality, their artificial nature isn’t all that jarring.) Returning briefly from the first Underworld are Bill Nighy (whose exaggerated grimaces and tics suggest his face was also digitally augmented) and Shane Brolly; not surprisingly, Michael Sheen, whom Beckinsale left for Wiseman during the original film’s production, isn’t back.
The visual approach of Wiseman and his large team of craftsmen is familiar from many other horror/action/fantasy epics of the last decade or so, but it is brought off well, and the filmmakers do a fine job evoking European settings on Vancouver locations and sets. Wiseman’s action scenes are clean and direct, though one of the best (a chase between a truck and the flying Markus) comes early in the film, which doesn’t reach that peak again until a finale that contains a bit of crowdpleasing comeuppance. This sequel may not represent a true evolution, but it is a step up from its predecessor and a fun pulp monster movie. It’s entertaining enough that the explicit and inevitable promise of another installment at the end isn’t the groaner it might have been.
