Underworld: Romeo and Juliet…With Fangs and Claws

Underworld: Romeo and Juliet…With Fangs and Claws
Selena’s (Kate Beckinsale) life as a vampire seemed to revolve mainly around her duties as a member of the Death Dealers, an elite hunter/killer team of vampires tasked with wiping out the Lycans or werewolves, the archenemy of her race. Off duty, she is busy fending off the advances of Kraven (Shane Brolly), a vampire bureaucrat (See, even vampires are not spared from bureaucrats!) who is smitten with her. Until she intercepted a wolf pack sent to kidnap Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman), a human medical student (Yup, we poor humans are apparently unaware of the centuries-old bloodshed between the monsters.). Kraven dismissed the encounter as routine, but Selena sensed something more sinister than Lycans deciding to dine on a human. Her snooping uncovered the Lycans’ plot to create a vampire/Lycan hybrid by mixing the blood of Corvin, a descendant of the man who fathered both Lycans and werewolves, with the blood of an elder and powerful vampire, Amelia (Zita Gorog). The half-blooded creature will add more muscle to the werewolves and lead them to victory over their enemies. As she dug deeper, she discovered that Lucian (Michael Sheen), the werewolf warlord, did not die by Kraven’s hand as what the vampire claimed by flagging a piece of the werewolf’s skin as proof of his demise. She decides to take Michael under her aegis, in clear defiance of the age-old law that no vampire should fraternize with a Lycan, let alone fall for one. When the Lycans abduct Michael, she commits another grave infarction by awakening Viktor (Bill Nighy), a slumbering elder vampire and a father figure to Selena. With Viktor at her side, she defeats Kraven and Lucian, but she will only be absolved of her sin for awakening Viktor if she will kill Corvin who has mutated into the abomination that they feared. In Shakespearean fashion, Selena chooses love and damnation over redemption and kills Viktor.
By fusing Romeo and Juliet with monster lore, Underworld presents a unique world where vampires and werewolves are literally at other’s throats with man playing the stupid passerby who is unaware that two beasts are tearing each other apart until a stray claw or fang draws him into the battle. However, the film somewhat stuck to tradition by portraying the vampires as aristocratic (shades of Count Dracula) compared to their working class cousins (they have a common ancestor), the Lycans who lurk in sewers. And it also has two tales of love that crossed battle lines, the first was the tragic story of Lucian, Viktor’ servant, and his bride, his master’s daughter. It was their affair that ignited the war, and the second, of course, is Selena and Michael’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Besides its romance-laced plot and the father-daughter bond between Selena and Viktor as a subplot, Underworld also dishes out graphic combat scenes lest viewers forget that they are meant to watch vampires and werewolves slug it out and not vampires and werewolves trysting under a full moon, while the costume is reminiscent of Blade and Matrix. The attempt of Beckinsale, Sheen, and Nighy to add luster to their cardboard characters is laudable while Speedman probably realized that the effort is useless and just decided to coast along. After all, Underworld is not bound for the Oscars, so why waste time infusing life to your role? Still, it is a unconventional movie about Romeo and Juliet born not into the distinguished clans of Capulets and Montagues, but to the tribes of vampires and Lycans.
-Prospero Pulma Jr.-