By Mark Burger
Story
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.
Acting
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.
Direction
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.