Movie Review: Underworld Rise of the Lycans

Underworld Rise of the Lycans (2009) 

Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos

Written by Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman, Howard McCain

Starring Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, Rhona Mitra

Release Date January 23rd, 2009 

Published January 23rd, 2009

It is somehow odd to me that I have liked each of the Underworld movies. Odd because I have managed to be surprised by how much I have liked each of these movies. From the marketing, the first two Underworld movies were about ogling Kate Beckinsale in tight black leather. Yet, watching them, I was endlessly tickled by the over the top effects and the grand screen chewing performances of Brits Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen.

In the latest addition to the franchise, Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen take front and center and once again I was surprised how good a time I had watching such a wondrously goofy sci fi exploitation flick.

The first two Underworld films set the scene, Vampires and Werewolves, at war for centuries with humans as merely a bone each wants to feast on. Each of the Underworld made reference to what happened to turn these warring factions so blisteringly against each other. Now in Rise of the Lycans we see the story fully fleshed for the first time.

You see, when Werewolves came into existence they were merely animals that were once human but incapable of accessing their human side. That changed with the birth of Lucian (Michael Sheen) a werewolf capable of reason and able to transition from wolf to man at will. 

Raised by vampires, Lucian's blood was used to create a slave class, kept in line by a collar that prevented them from going all werewolf. It was an ideal set up for the Vampires until grown up Lucian fell in love with Viktor's daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra) and conspired with her to escape from his torturous slavery. With the aid of another Vampire, Tannis (Steven Mackintosh) attempting usurp Viktor's power, Lucian does escape and takes a number of his werewolf brethren with him.

This sets the stage for war, especially when Lucian returns for Sonja and Viktor discovers his daughter's affair.

In the tradition of the Hammer horror movies, Underworld Rise of the Lycans makes great use of a pair of brilliant english actors who bring a cache of classy talent to an otherwise B-movie conceit. Bill Nighy and Oscar nominee Michael Sheen tear into the material of Underworld Rise of the Lycans with relish and their passion for such goofball work is rousing.

Even as cheeseball effects rage around them, Nighy and Sheen keep their dignity intact and manage to raise the material to a level of respectability that only a truly talented actor could. While many would rightly expect this movie was about Rhona Mitra putting on Kate Beckinsale's tight black leather, it quickly becomes about Sheen's raging romantic angst and Nighy's screen chewing palace intrigue.

First time director Patrick Tatopoulis smartly embraces a low budget aesthetic that makes his effects look something akin to Bruce Campbell's Army of Darkness but with werewolves. The key is that Tatopoulis is aware of his low aesthete and doesn't try to hide it. He knows the effects are cheesy, he just keeps them moving fast enough so that we don't get bogged down goofing on them.

Underworld Rise of the Lycans is alot of fun. As I have said about the last two movies, who doesn't love the idea of Vampires fighting Werewolves. It's just a cool idea. Throw in a couple of brilliant brits and some camp-tastic special effects and you have all the ingredients for a good time at the movies.

I am not ashamed to say, I really had a great time watching Underworld Rise of the Lycans.

Movie Review: Doomsday

Doomsday (2008) 

Directed by Neil Marshall

Written by Neil Marshall

Starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Adrian Lester 

Release Date March 14th, 2008

Published June 12th, 2008 

Director Neil Marshall is a talented scenarist with a flair for hardcore violence. His The Descent is one of the best horror films of the decade. For his latest effort Doomsday, Marshal tries his hand at post-apocalyptic sci fi and finds he has little new to add to this aggressive sub-genre. Though Doomsday is skilled in its violence and has a strong visual sense, the story is beyond laughable, the characters wooden and forgettable.

In some not so distant future a virus dubbed 'Reaper' has devastated much of Scotland. The blood borne, possibly airborn disease has who of the Isle terrified and left London with a damnable decision. Sentencing millions to die horrifying deaths, the government built an 18 mile wall encompassing the whole border between England and Scotland.

Years later drug enforcement cops stumble on a cache of disease victims. The reaper virus is back and another horrible decision must be made. There is however a sliver of hope. Satellites have picked up movement in Glasgow, survivors. The thought is that the legendary Dr. Kane (Malcolm McDowell may have developed a cure.

The government throws together an elite fighting force to go into the infected area, find Kane and the possible cure. Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) is charged with leading this force into battle. What she finds are a loose confederacy of survivors for whom violence, human sacrifice and cannibalism are the order of the day.

The skill of Neil Marshall's direction in Doomsday is undeniable. What is lacking is any good sense in the storytelling. Doomsday unfolds in anarchic fashion but lacking a truly anarchic spirit. Marshall can't seem to decide whether he is going for the hardcore cool of 28 Days Later or the ironic, distanced, black humor of Mad Max.

What comes of Doomsday is a failed melange of the darkly comic and the attempted tragic.

Star Rhona Mitra has the physicality and good looks necessary for this role but she is at times far too sullen and lacking in the badass cool that might turn Doomsday from gloomy to just goofy enough for guilty pleasure. I wanted to revel more in her  badassery but Mitra just won't let us in. We admire her stunt work and occasionally smirk at her attempts at humor but the performance is too flat to inspire anything more than modest admiration.

If you like bizarre you may admire Neil Marshall's use of music in Doomsday. Fine Young Cannibals, Siouxie and the Banshees and Frankie Goes To Hollywood each receive prominent placement in Doomsday in some bizarre, overly ironic tribute to the 1980's.

There was potential for Doomsday to be the kind of badass action movie that combined the spirit of Big Trouble in Little China with the horror aesthete of 28 Days Later. Unfortunately, Marshall can't quite get the mix right. His visual style is impeccable but for all the attention paid to stunts and effects, the story falters and Doomsday disappoints.

Movie Review Shooter

Shooter (2007) 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua 

Written by Jonathan Lemkin 

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Rhona Mitra

Release Date March 23rd, 2007 

Published March 23rd, 2007 

Mark Wahlberg is on the verge of major superstardom. Coming off his Oscar nominated performance in The Departed, Wahlberg is one major starring role away from that rarefied air of a 20 million dollar man. Unfortunately, his latest starring role, Shooter, is not the career transforming movie he was looking for. An abysmal mess of action movie cliches, Shooter is a step backward, in fact, for Wahlberg who delivers one of the least appealing performances of his career.

Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) is one of the best snipers in the world. As demonstrated early in the movie, he can take out a can of beef stew from a mile away. That is why security contractors led by Colonel Johnson (Danny Glover) turn to him to find out how an assassin might kill the President with a near impossible shot from more than a mile away.

Though not exactly keen on helping a President he has deep philosophical differences with, Bob casually reads the 9/11 report and talks of disdain for wars over oil; just to give you an idea of his political bent, Swagger agrees to help out. It turns out to be a fateful decision. The asassination happens despite Bob's help and in fact because of it, the men he is working for are the actual assassins and Bob it seems is their patsy.

Now he must team up with a rookie FBI agent, babyfaced Michael Pena, to take down the shady conspiracy. To do so, they will have to kill a whole heck of alot of people.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, a master of style over substance filmmaking, Shooter has no real plot but rather plot hangers on which scenes of extreme violence are hung. On the bright side, much of that extreme violence is pretty cool looking. A siege on a farmhouse where Wahlberg and Pena kill some 20 or more nameless henchmen brings back fond goofball memories of Schwarzeneger's Commando and Stallone's Rambo.

Naturally, this being a throwback to action movies past there is eye candy in Shooter. Hot redhead Kate Mara, last seen in the underappreciated We Are Marshall, plays Wahlberg's love interest who by chance happens to spend much time in bondage wearing only a bra and jeans. And then there is smokin' babe Rhona Mitra, best known from TV's Nip/Tuck, who plays Pena's FBI partner who, though she keeps her clothes, models some lovely short skirts that I doubt are standard issue for an FBI agent.

Allegedly, when it comes to the action/thriller genre, we are supposed to accept plot holes and dumb luck that allow the lead character to escape certain capture or death. Shooter abuses the dumb luck in scenes so appallingly contrived that Jean Claude Van Damme would scoff. What luck that Swagger manages to steal a car that happens to have medical supplies in the truck right after he had been shot twice.

What luck that the one guy in the world without a television happens to be an expert in weapons who can help Swagger figure out who set him up. To ask for suspension of disbelief once or twice is cool, to keep asking over and over until all logic is abandoned in favor of utter contrivance is just too much.

Shooter compounds its goofball plot with a political perspective as ludicrous as any of the outsized action scenes in the film. Wahlberg's Bob Lee Swagger presents a pseudo-liberal political perspective that he defends with a gun. In a more self aware movie that could be played for ironic laughs, but Shooter is not a satire. The film wears a simplistic anti-war, anti-conservative perspective on its sleeve right down to showing Swagger casually reading the 9/11 report and chiding his enemies for their wars for oil.

Kudos to Mark Wahlberg and director Antoine Fuqua for wanting their film to be relevant but if they really want to get their point across; they need to do it in a smarter, more self aware movie. Shooter is a blood and guts, old school action picture. Attempting to shoehorn political commentary into the film only serves to make the politics seem as irrelevant as the film itself.

The most disappointing thing about Shooter is the thing that should have been its biggest strength. Star Mark Wahlberg. In one of the most unappealing performances of his career, Wahlberg mumbles his way through a charisma free performance. Handicapped by a script that gives him little more to do than shoot and grunt, Wahlberg brings very little life to this performance.

Mark Wahlberg is far too good an actor for such dopey material as Shooter. Brainless action crossed with mindless political cliche, Shooter feigns depth by appealing to a left wing mindset but insults that same left wing with its goofball liberalism defended with a big gun. It's true that Shooter has its heart in the right place; but when its purpose is so poorly expressed, the point is desperately missed.

Wahlberg will bounce back from this. Shooter may not launch him into the star territory of Tom Cruise, Will Smith or even Mel Gibson, but he's too talented not to make it there eventually. That is, if he can bypass idiot movies like Shooter.