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Underworld Boss For the years that I've been a film-nut there are certain concepts that I've always wanted to see done well with more consistency. Fantasy is one genre that I think Hollywood still hasn't puzzled out and another is movies featuring vampires, werewolves, and other interesting humanoid monsters that go bump in the night. Often times the concepts are guided with a heavy or unskilled hand and you get crap like Bloodrayne. Other times it is treated with camp and you get stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (though the series eventually made up for the sins of the film). I've not seen Nightw*tch as yet, so the only movie that I've seen that featured vampires that I though wasn't total crap was Bram Stoker's Dracula. And then I saw Underworld. From the first time that I saw the trailer I had a good sense that Underworld was going to deliver the goods that I was seeking. Underworld kept everything interesting about vampires and werewolves and dumped the Anne Rice homo-eroticism and dusty old tux-with-tails nonsense that had plagued the genre for far too long. In Underworld vampires were cool and sexy, not creepy/cheesy like male porn stars. A world in which vampires, including Death-dealer Celene (Kate Beckinsale), have hunted werewolves (lycans) to the brink of extinction, Underworld kick-starts the action and story with an opening sequence that brilliantly sets up several plot lines throughout the movie while riveting you to your seat. At the point in the second act when the most powerful lycan, Lucian (Michael Sheen), shakes off half a dozen bullet-wounds - literally willing the bullets from his body - I leaned over to my brother and asked, "am I the only one who thinks this is the coolest f*cking movie that I've ever seen?" Without getting into the specifics of the story, Celene soon decides to wake the most powerful of the vampire leaders, Viktor (Bill Nighy in the role he apparently was born to play), and it is at this point that the film gets even better as we speed toward a resolution that is not at all what had been expected at the film's inception. Underworld looks and sounds like a Tool video, so if you hate Tool, you probably hated Underworld. That's your loss, mate, because when it comes to action and vampires I don't see Underworld getting bested anytime in the near future. email this review to a friend
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Sep 1, 2007 3:29 AM
While I think that the specific names and such were certainly crossing the line, a lot of the suit was pure horsesh*t. For instance, they BOTH ripped off Romeo and Juliet. You can't sue because someone pilfers the same purse as you. White Wolf also leaned in the same direction as Rice (with all vamps being gay pederasts) and altogether is a little too steeped in their own lore.
So while I hope the original creators got their paychecks (and I am sure they did since the whole thing seemed to evaporate as fast as it materialized), I was glad that White Wolf and other entities were cut out of the creative loop. I am sure now, as I was then, that had the plaintiffs been creatively involved it would have sunk the whole project. Ultimately, it probably worked out best for everyone unless your going to tell me that Sony Pics and company didn't settle and won (which I doubt and will want links and proof).