Underworld Awakening

My head was splitting, my ears were aching, my eyes were twitching, my heart was pounding, my stomach was churning, my brain was reeling.

And none in a good way.

It was ten minutes into Underworld: Awakening, the vampires vs. werewolves movie my pal dragged me too. Well, I wanted to check out the chick in the leather outfit, and I was basically virgin to all the other Underworld: Nouns, so I was willing game. Poor, poor me.

It’s only January 24, and I have already surpassed my annual cinematic quota of bursting brains. Bursting brains via bullet, gun, fang, grenade, needle, you name it, the movie’s a very bloody entry into the annals of attention-deficit drama. Everything about it was depressing: the washed out cinematography, the concrete lab-fortress as modern-day Castle Frankenstein, the joyless existence of every single character, even the Star Trek redshirts. And I am so tired of that vampire look of the past twenty years – a cross between Abercrombie & Fitch model and something outta the pages of my wife’s Vogue magazine.

What sickened me most, I think, was the oozing evil of the thing. Not true scary and seductive evil, like that Lambs movie; this evil is just plain stupid and boring. Vampires were evil, the werewolves were evil, each and every human was evil. Heck, I was even rooting for the main character, Kate Beckinsale’s vampire, to get killed. No mercy, no hope, nothing. This, I thought, desperate to give my theatergoing experience some meaning, is the World without Christ.

Yet I enjoy the Resident Evil flicks. Why? I think it goes back to that hope thing. In the latter movies, there’s always a plucky band of human survivors trying to overcome the zombie psycho menace. True, they’re killed off one by one and in similarly grotesque ways, but a few always overcome, and hope wins the day, at least in some small measure.

Plus, Milla just kicks Kate’s butt any day.

Underworld: Awakening – Grade: D. (Hey, the 3-D was impressive)