Underworld (2003)

  I've never really cared for this franchise, though I've somehow ended up owning all the movies.  I don't think I ever paid for any, however.  They were either gifts or just ended up with me in the carnage of my break-ups.  So I'm going to give them one more shot and see if they've somehow improved with age.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is one of an elite group of vampires that hunt Lycans, the vampires' mortal enemies.  She discovers that the Lycans are tracking one particular human, Michael (Scott Speedman), which leads her to uncover one of the biggest secrets in the war:  the original werewolf leader of the rebellion, Lucian (Michael Sheen), didn't die but has been patiently planning the ultimate revenge on his former masters.

This movie has not gotten any better but I have matured enough to at least know what I don't like about it and why, as opposed to when I first saw it where I was just angry and couldn't articulate anything but that I was angry.

The writing is extremely lazy.  It's a very basic premise (werewolves vs vampires) that has been done over and over again since the old Universal horror days with the only "modern" update that the protagonist is a female action hero.  There were four writers according to the credits, with final screenwriting credit to Danny McBride (no, not the one you're thinking of.  Different guy, same name.)  McBride is the one I am blaming for this misogynistic claptrap masquerading as a badass heroine.

There are a ton of different types of vampire myths.  Every franchise has handled them a little differently.  Sometimes they can walk in daylight, sometimes they have reflections, sometimes they have fake Southern accents.  But the writing is what communicates these differences.  Underworld doesn't specify any particular qualities of its vampires.  It just leaves it for the audience to assume "vampire" carries a particular set of traits.  But if so, then the actions of the characters need to conform to those traits.  Only Selene doesn't.

Erika (Sophia Myles) is shown jumping straight from a kneeling position to the ceiling of a room, hanging there like a hissing lamp when Michael wakes up in the vampire mansion.  Okay, so that would imply vampires have super strength and speed.  But Selene can't catch up with Michael as he's running for an elevator in the safe house.  Why?  He's just a human (at that point).  She should have taken two steps and had him by the scruff of the neck.  Then, a little later in the same fight sequence, she takes some damage to the collarbone from a sword.  A few moments later, she is still shown to be bleeding, to the point where she passes out and loses control of the car, sending her and Michael into the river.  Okay, so no superpowered healing?  No "hey, can I borrow your arm?  I need a snack to fix this damage"?  A vampire suffering from blood loss is just a hungry vampire, not a damsel in distress.

But again, lazy writing.  McBride and co. wanted to make it clear that Selene and Micheal need each other.  Instead of making Michael smarter or more resourceful, however, they just made Selene weaker and dependent on him.  What vampire needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?  What vampire drowns?  The whole point is that they are already dead.  If the Underworld vampires aren't actually undead, just suffering from a virus or something (which has been done), that has to be communicated to the audience.  Otherwise it looks like a shoddy plot hole or worse, like forcing your main character into the "tough but vulnerable" trope and having her run to a father surrogate every time she gets in the least amount of trouble.  Selene is a fetish being sold as a protagonist and that's gross.