Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Review

Taking the bare bones of The Ten Commandments and Romeo and Juliet this pedestrian tale explains the origins of Lucian (Michael Sheen) a “Lycan” (read: lycanthrope) who served the vicious vampire king Viktor (Bill Nighy) but would eventually lead a revolt of his fellow Lycans (read: slaves) after his illicit affair with Viktor’s daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra) was revealed. From this the war between vampires and werewolves would be waged for generations to come depicted in Underworld and Underworld: Evolution. Those unfamiliar with the previous films might be a little lost here and it’s highly unlikely that Rise of the Lycans will win many new fans to the franchise. With his glow-in-the-dark eyes and penchant for delivering every syllable with relish Nighy does his best to enliven things but there’s not much to work with — and hamminess only goes so far. Sheen’s female fans may enjoy seeing him shaggy and occasionally shirtless but if The Queen and Frost/Nixon proved he’s capable of doing good work with good material this proves that at least he can cash in with bad material. Mitra who survived the rigors of Doomsday is fit and fetching here. But performances are not this movie’s strong suit. Very little is. This marks the directorial debut of award-winning production designer Patrick Tatopoulos (who also supervised the creature design) so it’s no surprise that the film is steeped in medieval atmosphere and loaded with CGI effects. Beyond that it’s a crashing bore — even with the gore.