BEFORE: At this point, I just want to wrap up this wretched franchise, finish werewolf week, and move on...
THE PLOT: An origins story centered on the centuries-old feud between the race of aristocratic vampires and their onetime slaves, the Lycans.
AFTER: Another failure - though again, I'm not 100% sure if it's the fault of the movie, or my own. Yes, I was tired tonight, and eventually I gave up trying to understand this mess of a plot, and I put my head down in frustration and fell asleep. Of course, this didn't help me understand the ending at all...I think I have to declare a mulligan on this film and just try to forget about it.
I think I've finally figured out what's wrong with these "Underworld" films - the basic premise of a werewolf film is that a "regular" person, like Lawrence Talbot, or the traveling college student in the "American Werewolf" films, gets bitten, which has a certin impact on the viewer. "Gee, I'm a regular person," thinks the viewer, "and if I were traveling in the moors of Europe, and I got bitten, I could turn into a werewolf myself!" In their own way, these movies become accessible - the viewer could just as easily imagine themselves camping at Crystal Lake, or having a Nightmare when on Elm St.
But the "Underworld" movies feature a social hierarchy where every important character is ALREADY a vampire or a werewolf (and those that aren't either are considered food...) and part of a complicated society with a council, a bunch of arcane rules, etc. I can't find an entry point into understanding, and therefore I don't much care.
Geez, even "Teen Wolf" and "Ginger Snaps" had fairly regular high-school students who were affected by the werewolf's bite (OK, so it was hereditary in "Teen Wolf"...) - then we end up caring about the infected characters, because we knew them before. Even the great George Lucas understood this, and this is part of what made "Star Wars" great. Despite the complicated rules of the Empire vs. the Rebellion, the Senate vs. the Trade Federation, the Jedi Council vs. the Sith, the audience was given an entry point. Luke Skywalker was a simple farmboy, and the audience sets out on the hero's journey with him - the concept was even repeated in Episode I with Anakin Skywalker as a simple slave, who gets a chance to explore the galaxy and eventually become a heroic figure.
So something is fundamentally missing here. Though I will give this third film in the series a bit of a break, for depicting something a little more Shakespearean - it's easy to compare a vampire and a werewolf falling in love to "Romeo & Juliet", for example. Still, I consider this to be overly complicated, and far from entertaining.
Starring Bill Nighy, Rhona Mitra (last seen in "The Number 23"), Michael Sheen and Steven Mackintosh (carrying over from last night's film, but big deal...)
RATING: 3 out of 10 crossbow bolts
SPOOK-O-METER: 5 out of 10. But not scary enough to make me lose sleep, or even keep me awake.
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