UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION 2006, dir. Len Wiseman 106 min. Rated R. Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Tony Curran, Bill Nighy. Review by Bobby Jones

We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow...

If you’ve ever read any of my reviews you know that they are usually brief and to the point...just like this one is going to be. Vampires fighting werewolves is just plain cool regardless of the movie that it takes place in so the Underworld franchise gets points for that without trying. There are going to be a lot of people who trash this movie, most of them being the same people who trashed the first one. If you are a movie snob of any sort or really just have absolutely no interest in this sort of thing, you will hate this movie. It’s overly stylistic, has a crazy, convoluted plot, features creatures and gadgets that make little (if any) sense (even in the vampire/werewolf world) and is basically a video game in movie form. On the flip side, if you like any of the following things you will definitely dig Underworld 2:

- sci-fi
- horror
- video games
- monsters
- comic books
- hot chicks in leather
- shit that’s really cool
- any of the Blade films
- the first Underworld movie

It’s really just that simple.

That being said, the film picks up where the last left off, like a good little sequel should and adds even more back-story to the vampire/lycan feud. With this second installment there is now a fully fleshed out Underworld mythology and I’m counting the hours until the first pages of fan fiction hit the 'net. We finally get to see some of what Michael is capable of, although with him being the "chosen one" vampire/lycan hybrid, he didn’t seem to really have any of the cool super-powers that I had hoped he would have. Oh, and we also get to see Kate Beckinsale mostly naked which is always a plus. In the end, while the Underworld movies have yet to really add anything new or original to the action/horror/monster genre, they do stand up as some of the best of their kind.

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