Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Bill Nighy doesn't drink...wine.

(Screen Gems) Michael Sheen, Rhona Mitra, Bill Nighy, Steven Mackintosh, Kevin Grevioux, David Aston. Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos

Every story has a beginning. For the ongoing war between the Vampires and Lycans (werewolves), we have seen only the middle. This is where it began.

Most fairy tales begin with “Once Upon a Time.” So, once upon a time the vampires were in charge of everything. Human lords paid them tribute and vampires kept Lycan slaves to do the heavy lifting and also to protect them during the daylight hours when they must sleep.

Victor (Nighy) is ruler of the Vampire coven. His daughter Sonja (Mitra) is like him haughty and a member of the ruling council, although she doesn’t seem to take her responsibilities seriously. It’s a serious time for the Vampires; the original pure-blooded Lycans who are more beast than human are on a rampage, and they have far greater numbers.

One of the pureblood Lycans has had a baby who has retained its humanity. While Victor executes the mother, he spares the baby who grows up to be Lucian (Sheen), who was part of the central action in the first Underworld. From his blood Victor creates a number of – clones? – Well, a lot of bare-chested guys that get hairy when the moon is full. Victor controls them by means of silver bondage collars that kind of fit in with the whole S&M motif – the vampires are awfully fond of leather corsets, bustieres and trenchcoats. 

Lucian has also fallen in love with Sonja and the two are carrying on a torrid, illicit affair that is forbidden by Vampire law (which sounds like a title for a new series on the CW). When Sonja impulsively goes out to save a group of human nobles who were attacked by the bestial Lycans on the way to a meeting with the Vampire council, Lucian rides out to save her and is forced to remove his collar to fight his cousins. Although he saves Sonja, he is punished for breaking the law of never removing his collar.

Lucian is befriended by a human slave named Raze (Grevioux, who also appeared as this character in the first Underworld) who is turned to werewolf by Victor, who has Raze bitten by a pureblood. Seeing that his people are being brutalized by the Vampires Lucian undergoes a change of heart. He decides, Spartacus-like, to lead his people – and incidentally the humans too – to freedom. Sonja helps him escape but in the process their love for each other is exposed – and Victor is forced to do something so horrible it will set events in motion that will reverberate around the world for a thousand years.

This is the kind of movie that needs to be a wild ride, and for some of the movie it accomplishes that. There are plenty of nifty action scenes, vampire and werewolf chow downs and transformations galore. There’s also a great deal of blood as you might expect.

You don’t see this kind of movie for the acting, but there are actually some fine actors involved. Nighy is having a grand old time going over the top like he’s summiting Everest. It’s actually fun to watch him wrap himself around dialogue that would do a Roman epic proud. He can make even the tritest lines sound positively Shakespearean and he doesn’t disappoint here.

Sheen has been coming on lately to deliver some awesome work of late in movies like The Queen and Frost/Nixon. He is reprising a role from earlier in his career; it isn’t the most glamorous of his career but he nonetheless gives it his all and makes Lucian heroic, if a bit bland. He certainly looks far more hunky than in his turns as Tony Blair and David Frost.

Because this is all about vampires, most of the movie takes place at night and inside a creepy, dark castle. Dark is the operative word here; dark as in underlit. Between the dark sets, the black wardrobe and the pale skin, sometimes it feels like you’re watching the film through black gauze.

There’s not a lot of emotional resonance here which is a bit odd since at the center of the movie is a forbidden love story, but in the long run that’s okay. After all, we’re talking vampires and werewolves here, right? That’s just a recipe for awesomeness that shouldn’t disappoint and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans doesn’t. There’s enough fun that the movie fulfills its purpose and leaves me wanting another go.

WHY RENT THIS: Bill Nighy chows down on the scenery like he hasn’t eaten in days, and he seems to be having a great time doing it too. Sheen has been doing the best work of his career lately; he puts a brave face on and does exceptionally well in a part that doesn’t necessarily deserve it.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: This is a very, very dark movie. No, not the tone; the lighting. It’s downright hard to see sometimes. Some of the CGI is a little weak, and the dialogue is a bit pretentious.  

FAMILY VALUES: Gore, gore and more gore. And then, a little more gore. Oh, and some violence. And then gore. Did I mention there is a lot of gore?

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Michael Sheen was asked to re-record some dialogue for Frost/Nixon during shooting and did so, covered in fake blood after a days shooting for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. A framed picture of the event sits in Ron Howard’s office.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The Blu-Ray edition has an interactive map feature called “Lycanthropes Around the World” that traces reputed werewolf sightings from around the globe.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Six Days of Darkness Day Two

She Waits

The night was chilly but Kristine didn’t feel it. The night was her friend, after all, and it would be so eternally. HE was coming for her, and they would be together at last, forever. He had walked with kings, done battle with heroes and loved and lost many lifetimes worth.

She had met him at the coffee house where she was a waitress; he had been reading Voltaire and drinking a capuccino. He was slender, his face chiseled and aristocratic with sensuous lips. His eyes were the color of maple syrup with an intensity of gaze that made her blush the first time he had turned it on her. He introduced himself as Abraham.

She had though the name quaint but had been drawn to his quiet self-confidence, his commanding presence. She had never felt anything like this before, so drawn to another person. She had known almost before sitting down at his table and talking to him, that he was her soulmate.

That she was not available romantically was immaterial. She had a boyfriend that she lived with, two small children that depended on her but even her own flesh and blood dwindled away in the overwhelming attraction that she felt for this man. A small part of her screamed that something was not right, that she was abandoning her children but those screams were slight compared to the sound of HIM in her brain. He was all that mattered.

They’d had sex, or at least something very much like it. He hadn’t climaxed inside her yet; that would come later. She smiled at the double entendre of her own thoughts and felt a slight flush in her cheeks, as she often did when she thought of him. His kisses were cold but elicited such heat from her.

When he told her that he was nosferatu at first she thought he had been joking but when he showed her his true face, faded to mist before her very eyes she had been frightened. Soon she got used to the idea, and embraced it as a part of him. He wasn’t evil, not truly. He simply did what he had to do to survive. He could have easily fed on her the first night they met, when she had joined him at his table after her shift ended at the coffee house – in fact, he confessed, he had gone there for that very purpose.

Instead, he had found her, his one true love. Her heart quickened at the thought. He had the pick of so many women, throughout eternity but he had chosen her, Kristine, as his mate. “We mate for eternity,” he told her that night six days ago as they strolled in the gardens by the moonlight. “Our kind knows love that humans dare only dream of. We are passionate and loyal and our love never flickers, never fades. Once given, it is given forever.”

The moon was rising now, and it wouldn’t be long. She stood in the clearing of the woods near the city, wearing only a sheer nightgown. Her soft hair was up, leaving her neck bare for him. She had pulled the top of her gown down below her shoulders; her bare breasts peeked out above the gown, but modesty was gone from her now. She had no reason to be ashamed of her body, a body that delighted an immortal so.

That first night he had taken her to his room and they had made passionate love. She blushed, remembering the wildness of the night, and the things she had done with him, things she had never done before, things she had sworn she would never do and in a single night had given him those things without hesitation. She would do anything he asked, and as it turned out he asked for many things.

In the days and weeks that followed, she met him nearly every night. Sometimes they would have sex but not always. Some nights he was more thoughtful and was eager to talk, to tell her about his life, and a long life it was. He had known the glory of the Roman empire, and had fought for Charlemagne. He had strolled the streets of the Venice ruled by the Medicis, and had seen the court of Louis XIII at Versailles. There was no place on earth he hadn’t traveled to, no life he hadn’t led. He had built mansions in New Orleans, had been a gunfighter in the Arizona Territories, a film director in the age of silent movies and helped design rockets that took humans to the Moon.

He had fought many wars  as a centurion in a Roman legion, a chevalier in the French army, a lancer in the English army of  Henry VI and a ninja in feudal Japan. He had hundreds, thousands of lover through time, the most beautiful women of their eras. He had fed on many, he told her, but he had learned over the centuries to feed without killing. This had kept him hidden from the eyes of those who hated and feared his kind, and had hunted them to near-extinction. “We do not make children,” he’d told her one night last week as they dined in his sizable home. “We do not procreate as you do. That is why our numbers are few. Our procreation comes by a different means; by turning a willing subject to our ways, mingling our blood with theirs and then by consummating our love. That is the secret, you see; we can only turn those that we love, and we only love once and then for all eternity. We are linked as one soul; if one is destroyed, the other perishes as well.”

She had been frightened at first, the thought of dying when he first proposed it. He was quick to reassure her. “It is not death, not really. The body metamorphoses, changes from alive to…well, not dead although initially it will seem as such to mortals who don’t know our kind or what to look for. The change takes three days; on the night of the third day I would come for you and we would be together forever afterward.”

Still, even with these reassurances it had been a difficult choice. Leaving her children would be enormously painful. He was oddly sympathetic. “As painful as it is, you must never see your children again. They will age, wither and die while you remain young and vital. That is much more painful than putting them in your memory and keeping them there. You will find it easier to bear once you have turned.”

Six nights earlier, he told her the time had come. He had taken her to the place she stood now and again taken her body in the moonlight. “You must come to this very spot six days hence, at midnight. I will come to you then, not as I am now but in my true form. You will not know me but you must let me come to you and feed, and you must feed on my blood as well. Once you taste of my blood, you will feel light-headed, as if you had partaken of too much wine. Slowly you will tire, and at last slip into slumber. The warmth will leave your body forever. I will take you to a place where your body will be discovered; your human coroners will run their tests and determine that your heart stopped because of a genetic malformation. So sad, many tears. You will be buried, but on the third day you will regain consciousness and I will come for you.”

The past six days had been a whirlwind as she settled her earthly affairs. She picked a fight with her boyfriend and left him and her children, taking up residence in a hotel near the woods. She’d quit her job and written out a will specifying that she didn’t wish to be cremated. Her life insurance policy would pay for a burial and a small funeral; that was fine since there wouldn’t be many to attend. She had never been a sociable sort.

The hour was almost upon her. She wore no watch but knew instinctively. There was a mist covering the woods, scattering the moonlight like diamonds. In the distance, a wolf made its mournful cry but she felt only joy. Her lover was coming for her.