Cady's Take:

Selene finds the lycans shadowing a Human who they don't plan to eat for dinner. Finding this odd, and hoping to bust a few silver caps into these reservoir dogs, she goes after them. There is a scheme to create an interbred species that combines the strengths of both races which threatens to undermine both groups' existence and their underworld battle. Fashioned after Shakespeare’s infamous Capulets and Montagues, these two clans fear the combination of their lines more than anything else.
There were a lot of cool werewolf transformations and at times Underworld seems like it could break out into something really good, but never quite gets there. The film does have many action sequences that explode on screen making for a Matrix slash Blade sort of movie. If you enjoy vampire, werewolf, or Gothic genres, you will most likely enjoy this flick. But Fans of Anne Rice's vampires will be sorely disappointed as the only "power" these guys have is quick healing and the ability to jump around and stick to ceilings.

Ah, yes, the age old battle between vampires and werewolves. Is there a story older or more loved? Okay, okay I am poking fun a bit, but when I read the synopsis of “Underworld” I was highly skeptical that I would enjoy any of the movie. In fact, I was already thinking ahead of what mean, sarcastic things I could say about it in my review. You know what? I was surprised to find that I ended up liking this movie more than not, and I’ll tell you – I think I’ve expanded my horizons a bit.

As I mentioned, “Underworld” chronicles the battle between vampires and “lichens” or werewolves. Why they are called lichens I am not quite sure, as I thought lichens were something that grew on rocks or something. Anyway, I have to say that there is so much wrong with this movie that I am surprised that I liked it overall. Selene (Kate Beckensale) is a Death Dealer, and from what I can tell that means some sort of vampire special agent who hunts and kills werewolves. She comes across the human Michael (Scott Speedman) who the werewolves are hunting because he has pure blood or something. Although Selene is not sure why the werewolves want Michael she knows that the vampires need to get him first. Even though Selene and Michael hardly exchange any real communication, they are falling in love. Michael is of course bitten by a werewolf which puts him squarely at odds with his Death Dealer girlfriend, but who hasn’t gone through THAT in the beginning of a relationship?

There are several subplots involving other vampires, another werewolf, and it is too detailed to explain. This is no Anne Rice, but it is fun and “Underworld” is a really good-looking movie. Lots of rain of course, to accentuate the darkness and leather (if vampires are trying to go unnoticed among humans, full-body leather jumpsuits are not the way to go), and the sets are excellent. I thought the movie was a bit off the mark on how vampires are brought back to life but I can live with that. My two big complaints are with certain “vampirous inconsistencies”. The first, throughout the entire movie vampires and werewolves both fall from great distances and land on their feet, however during an action sequence one of the “bad guy” vampires falls and lands like a sack of potatoes for no apparent reason. Second, I always thought that vampires did not age, but Selene’s “How I Became a Vampire” story has her being inducted as a child and yet she is in her twenties. On the plus side, I have to say that I thought the weapons were really cool – the werewolves had bullets with light in them and the vampires had bullets with silver nitrate, which delivered silver directly into the werewolves’ bloodstream. So much more effective than those plain silver bullets we were using when I was a kid!