Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Goth Night at the Ren Fair
By
Michael C. Riedlinger
Editor-In-Chief

            In the latest installment of the Vampires vs. Werewolves series, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, director Patrick Tatopoulos lays out precisely how the two monster types came to be at war with one another. The trailer seemed to promise us the action and drama of Braveheart, with all the monster content of the Universal Studios classics. What we end up with instead is a hyper-predictable script with decent actors hiding under bad special effects and even worse costumes.

            I label the predictability as “hyper” because, even though we know the story from the first film in this series, Tatopoulos fails to add anything new. Maybe he is being cautious because the world hated his redesign of Godzilla a decade ago, but you would think he could at least try to apply his creativity somewhere in this film. Alas, the plot of Rise of the Lycans is little more than a 90-minute retelling of the back-story from the first Underworld. Where the first film might have been a metaphorical study of racism, however, this film fails to provide anything substantial we can latch onto. One minute the characters are discussing intelligent political machinations, and in the next, they are sacrificing their political acumen in order to move the story to its inevitable conclusion. Thankfully, the cast is less clumsy than the script.

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            Bill Nighy returns as Viktor, the perpetual lord of the vampires, and Michael Sheen, of recent Frost/Nixon fame, reprises his role as Lucian, in charge of leading the werewolves to freedom. Despite the clunky dialogue, the two manage to flex their acting muscles, and make the film watchable. Rhona Mitra, on the other hand, is a bit of a let down. Though her character from last year’s Doomsday was a total badass, this time around she is little more than a bad Beckinsale knock-off in black leather. Series alums Steven Mackintosh and Kevin Grevioux reprise their roles as well, giving us a glimpse of their character’s origins in performances that aren’t Oscar-worthy, but are still watchable. Overall, a lot of familiar faces, but they all feel a bit stale.

            The biggest problems with this film really come down to the aforementioned lack of subtext and a failure to build upon a burgeoning mythology. While fans of the genre really seemed to key in on the new genre concepts present in the original, Rise of the Lycans reveals that nobody involved with making this installment seems to have picked up on that. Though set in the middle ages, half the vampires are still wearing their club-hopping clothes from the first film. Because of the setting, there’s no opportunity to show off futuristic military hardware in this chapter of the saga. Any of the cat-and-mouse between the monsters is gone, subject to the closed confines of a spooky-ooky castle that has less personality than Grayskull. Finally, the most intriguing element from the prior pictures, the idea that ancient creatures must contend with a new, unforeseen problem, is absent here. Instead of hunting down hybrids or revealing ancient secrets, they are simply pissing each other off enough so that we know they are going to have a fight later. If you really need to blow your money on this movie while its in theaters, try to hit a matinee so you minimize your losses.

Final Verdict (out of 5):