I have a question for us to discuss. What's the deal with Underworld? I'd been under the impression that the movie sucked. I mean, sucked. As of today, it has a 30% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with Roger Ebert declaring: "This is a movie so paltry in its characters and shallow in its story that the war seems to exist primarily to provide graphic visuals."
Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of great scifi movies out there that the fans love and the critics hate. And I love, love, werewolves versus vampires. Not werewolves alone or vampires alone, but werewolves versus vampires, that I'd pay money to see. But, leaving the critics aside, the word of mouth on this flick was terrible too.
So why is there a sequel? I mean, seriously? We never got Bladerunner 2, but this?
Here's my theory: They're trying to pull a fast one on us. Here's how the scam works. A fan sees posters for a movie with a cool concept. It looks good, so the fan lets himself gets excited, but he's been around long enough to know that the cooler the concept, the more unlikely that the filmmakers got the execution right, so he waits for the critical response. The critics end up hating it, but the fan's been around long enough to know that the critics often hate what fanboys love the most, so he keeps his hopes level while he waits to hear the word of mouth from his even geekier friends who'll shell out ten bucks to see anything with a futuristic babe in leather pants. But the word of mouth is lousy, too, so the fan scraps the whole idea.
Then a sequel appears. The fan starts to doubt his initial estimation of the movie zeitgeist. "Was that movie actually good?" It's true that sometimes a movie just sneaks under our radar. Sometimes it seems like the movie that everyone seemed to hate last summer is now everyone's favorite. Curious, the fan heads over to the rental store and picks up the first movie to see if it was actually any good. They wouldn't make a sequel to a terrible movie, would they, the fan wonders? Sure, they'll make a bad sequel to a good movie (Matrix Reloaded), and any number of bad sequels after that (Matrix Revolutions), but if the first movie is bad, why beat a dead horse?
The fan watches the first movie, and it stinks. Now the fan's pissed, having wasted five bucks and two hours of valuable time. Worse, the fan kind of sort of has to go see the sequel now to see if maybe the screenplay was so much better than the first one that Hollywood simply couldn't say no even though the initial film flopped. Lots of sequels are better than the originals, after all: Terminator 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Gremlins 2, etcetera.
Ten bucks later, the fan's really angry, and Hollywood pats itself on the book for a marketing double-cross perfectly executed.
The worst part is, knowing all this won't prevent me from renting Underworld tomorrow.
Always nice to have a new KAMN...
Far be it from me not to play the part of the cynic, but what if more noble underpinnings are at work here?
First of all, Roger Ebert should be prohibited from watching any scifi movie. He's not a fan of the genre, and what makes good scifi is not necessarily the same thing as what makes good "mass consumption" films.
And perhaps therein lies the secret? What if the first movie is supposed to suck, on purpose? Perhaps that gets the morons in-charge to turn a blind eye to the pre-negotiated sequel, letting the director do some quality work for fans of the genre?
Or maybe I've eaten too much sugar in the last three days and am delusional. Hey look! Evo's an optimist.
Is there any such thing as a pre-negotiated sequel? I would imagine that, no matter what clauses are involved in a contract, if the first movie loses money, no one will go ahead with a sequel. Seems like a risk on the filmmaker's part to me...
I think they're clauses for options for sequels. Kinda like the deal where if Serenity made enough money for Universal, they'd greenlight two more movies.
Besides, in the scifi realm, it's usually the first movie that gets ignored, and when it makes a bunch of money (Matrix) or makes an impact (Highlander), then the suits start paying too much attention because they want to be able to boast that they had a finger in the making of the sequels... which is of course why they usually suck.
I saw part of a trailer for X-Men 3 last night, but since the same people from 1 and 2 aren't making it, I reserve judgment until after I see it. It looks pretty, though.
You are right, it sucked. It appears to be benefitting from the same sequel wave behind lots of other mediocore/bad flicks: Blade 2 etc.
Save your money for "Snakes on a Plane". This is going to be a hoot.
I can't wait for that one. I'm sure we all remember how the idea for that started, as that sketch on SNL where the snake gets loose on the plane and starts killing all the passengers, and then delivers a speech at the end that's like ten minutes long. One of the better sketches of the 90s, in my opinion. I wish I could find a screen capture or a transcript of that one online.
I actually liked Underworld because it had a hot babe and automatic weapons fire, and it was a monster movie done well. After seeing it on the big screen, I bought the dvd.
I'm looking forward to seeing the sequel.
And yes, I liked Van Heilsing too. At least I'm consistant.
Talk about crap sequels, the three following the first Highlander were utter garbage. Van Pebbles (sp?) doing the voice of the bad guy from the first one, can't think of his name right now but began with a K. Almost walked out of the theater on that one.
Good lord, that moment in Highlander: Endgame when Duncan's face morphed into Conor's face for a second almost made me give up on cinema altogether and go back to books for good.
I feel your pain, David. I watched Endgame on one of the movie channels, and I *forced* myself to keep watching it until the end, only so I'd never ever be tempted to watch any part of it again because of the "well, I didn't see all of it" excuse.
I should get a frakking medal for that.
My wife and I both liked Underworld as well. Never caught it in the theaters, but I saw the DVD on sale one day and added it to the pile I was already buying.
About the only gripe I have with it, actually, is one I have with 99% of all werewolf movies. I'm a werewolf traditionalist and prefer their two halves to be separate. One minute you're a very normal looking human, the next you're a mostly normal looking wolf (bit larger, bit meaner looking than a real wolf) who can only be killed by silver (or magic if that's involved). These two legged half-wolf-half-man things just aren't right. But as I said, that's a gripe I have with the vast majority of werewolf portrayals.
I've only watched it once since we got it... I'm working from home today... Hmm...
Count me in as another who enjoyed Underworld. I saw the extended version, or director's version, or unrated version or whatever it was... never saw the original cut so no idea how different it was.
Hot chick, big guns, monsters... what's not to like?
I loved Underworld. Beautiful movie with kick-ass fight scenes. Blatant rip-off of Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf RPGs? Yeah, that too.
They could have toned down Kraven's heavy breathing, though. I kept expecting him to take a hit off an inhaler...
I'm looking forward to the sequel.
A friend of mine likes it alot, and loaned me the dvd. I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. Remember - I'm a robots and rocketships guy, so I'm already predisposed to not liking it. On the other hand, my friend's a pretty smart guy, so I don't think he's one to just turn off his brain at the movies.
We'll see...
As for sequels, I think that many sequels are released in theatres more to give them status as "legitimate" films, even though they're straight-to-DVD quality. And that's where they'll make their money, too - in DVD sales and rentals. The studio looks at a script and says, we can film this on the cheap and recoup our investment at Blockbuster; the movie is released and disappears in less than a month; then is the top rental through Netflix. And that generates a lot of buzz.
Plus there are those movie viewers like Pete- he finds what he likes in the movie, knowing it's not going to be "2001". Who's to say that's not right?
And I think Evo needs to lay off the candy canes.
Oh no, not another one… (my brief rant about recent vampire movies)
I enjoy action or scifi oriented stories about vampires. I loved the first Blade film. I'm a big fan of Joss Whedon's Buffy and Angel shows. I own Kindred: the Embraced on DVD. I read the first seven or eight Laurell K. Hamilton novels about Anita Blake. I've even written some fiction with vampires in the stories. So I would probably be considered by a Hollywood executive to be a part of the target audience for movies like Blade 2, Blade Trinity, Underworld, and Underworld: Evolution. After all, I just said that I loved the first Blade movie, and I can also tell you that I was really excited by the Underworld trailer.
There are however, two things that I am desperately tired of seeing in vampire films. The first is Eastern Europe , and the second is the "original vampire."
Let's start with the Blade films. The first one had an interesting tension between the born vampires who liked the status quo and the turned vampires who wanted to shake things up. There was depth to the vampire culture evidenced by the spoken vampire language, written vampire text, and the use of glyphs on both familiars and safe houses. There was both an ancient prophecy at play and modern computing power at use. There were hints at a sort of Zen Buddhist philosophy for our hero. Characters and extras in the film were just as likely to be Asian or African American as they were white. The bad guys either conducted business, or wielded power, or threw parties, but they all existed in a larger world.
Now, what do we have in Blade 2? Most of the film is a long, dark monster hunt in Eastern Europe. A character that had a meaningful death in the first film is unrealistically still alive. The team of vampires that have trained to hunt down Blade seem like little more than a list role playing game stats. Each one has a special weapon or look, but none of them have a story or much of a personality. None of them (or anyone else in the film) have desires or goals outside of the points of the plot. There are a few interesting ideas, but no real depth to the world or the people.
Blade Trinity was marginally better than the second one thanks to a little bit of help from Ryan Reynolds who plays a supporting role as another slayer. There were a couple of welldone scenes (notably the shot of a vampire giving the sun the finger right at the opening of the film). However, the bad guys are all Eastern European, which seems to be enough of a character idea for the writer or director to avoid doing anything else with them. On top of that, they have to go and dig up the "original vampire" a.k.a. Dracula, who serves as one of the most unoriginal vampire villains I have seen on screen. The gang of slayers working together look, for a brief moment, like they might bring in some much needed variety to the film, but then they all get killed. There is a long and drawn out fight scene at the end during which I never worried for the hero's safety despite the almost god-like power wielded by the villain. Here's another hint to film makers: god-like power is almost always boring in a fight scene. Less is more. Try it out sometime.
Now we come to Underworld. The preview looked really cool. There is a secret war between vampires and werewolves, and we get stylish glimpses of the fight set to exciting music. However, once again, we have vampires (and now werewolves) with no culture, no involvement in anything except the points of the plot, and no depth to their identities. I never got a sense that any of them did anything other than stand around the vampire mansion and look pale all day. There was also hardly any variety in the casting. Are there no vampires or werewolves that have a different ethnic background? The movie wasn't terrible, but it failed to capture my imagination.
In the last month, I have watched the preview for the sequel, Underworld: Evolution. Where does the movie look like it takes place? Frakking Eastern Europe. Who is the villain? The mother-frakking "original vampire." Does the preview convey a sense of people or places that exist within a larger world? If anything, there appears to be less of that than in the first film, but hey, the special effects look good…
The one thing that seems clear is that the movie executives involved didn't look at these last four vampire films as real films. They looked at them simply as vampire films – as if by having a sci fi or fantasy element, the movie gave up its need for the elements and creativity of good story telling.
Of course, this is all just my opinion...
Indeed, I agree with Daniel on all counts. The fact is, though, that any original SF thinker working as a screenwriter in Hollywood now probably has no interest in writing any vampire movie. I mean, the genre's tired. It's being milked for every last penny by Hollywood, but the whole Universal monster thing is a fad that's come and gone. I'm sure vampires will have a creative resurgence down the road, but for now, there's an urgent need for a new thing. I'd assume that the real brains writing screenplays today are moving on to something else.
I agree the whole Eastern Euorpe thing is done. Campbell's Screaming Brain drove the stake in the chest for me on that count. But since a lot of films are being shot there for budget reasons, I fear it's going to bite us in the nether regions for sometime to come.
I enjoyed Underworld. I also enjoyed Blade and Blade 2. I haven't seen Blade: Trinity. Are any of these movies so amazing that they deserve to have a fan site or some such devoted to them (like Star Trek, Serenity, etc)? No. But they were enjoyable (to me). I could pick any and every movie I see apart for plot holes, inconsistencies and unrealistic idea's. (And yes even Serenity can be picked apart.)
I think you have to suspend belief and over look much of issues and just enjoy the movies. If you cann't do this then you won't enjoy the movies (or any movies for that matter).
Going against the current "I'm-a-fan-of-scifi-and-too-cool-to-like-any-of-it" trend, I'll say I enjoyed Underword a lot. I enjoyed the first movie very, very much, and was thrilled to hear of a sequel. However, after seeing the trailers that are currently running on television for it, I don't very high expectations of it.
I just haven't had the heart to watch Underworld yet, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Guess I need to break down and watch it, huh?
But I liked Blade a lot, and was enjoying Blade 2 until that WWF/WWE style fight at the end... I have no idea WTF those people were thinking with that. Completely ruined the movie for me.