The Underworld franchise is in a lot ways similar to the Resident Evil films. There’s a beautiful and badass leading lady, the action is energetic and awesome, and overall you can safely call them mindless entertainment. However, the Underworld films have an edge over the Resident Evil films in that they recruit much better directors, more polish scripts, actors with calibre, the action is bloody and unrestrictive, and they feature two opposing mythical entities that in a way were born to fight against each other. I’ve loved the Underworld films expect for the prequel, because as much as I like Michael Sheen one of the main reasons why these films work is because of Kate Beckinsale and without her things aren’t the same. After the prequel barely made its budget back, the people in charged realized that they needed to revisit Benckinsale’s Selene and in so we have Underworld Awakening.

Taking place a few months after the events of Underworld: Evolution, the human raise has become aware of the vampires and lycans and start hunting each of them down all around the world. After being separated from Michael (Scott Speedman), Selene (Kate Beckinsale) has been captured and placed on hibernation by a pharmaceutical corporation named Antigent led by chief scientist Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea). 12 years later and Selene awakes from her slumber and now sees a world where the vampires and lycans are on the verge of extinction. In her search for other vampires, Selene discovers a little girl named Eve (India Eisley) who may just be her daughter and befriends a human detective called Sebastian (Michael Ealy) who will aid her in bringing down Antigent and finding Michael.

If you are familiar with the Underworld films then you know exactly what to expect from Underworld Awakening. This film, which blatantly is the first of a possible trilogy, stays relatively close to the formula and overall style established in the first two films. Co-directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein don’t bring anything new to the series except for a keen eye on staging action scenes. With each new film the action gets considerably pumped up and this one is no exception, as each action set piece is exciting, bloody, badass, intense, epic and very memorable. The special effects have also been pumped up for this film and they lend themselves to create much more dynamic action scenes. It’s also good to note that Marlind and Stein managed to create a real sense of danger during the action scenes and while one knows that Selene won’t get killed, she got her ass kicked proficiently enough for her inevitable victory to feel much more rewarding.

I was really happy to see Kate Beckinsale back in this universe and taking into account how amazing she is here I’m going to go and say that Beckinsale is the best action actress right now. Forget Angelina Jolie and her measly human abilities, Beckinsale is the raging vampire bitch whose sole presence exudes enough intimidation and unnatural badassery that you can’t help but fall in love with her and cheer for her to kill everyone. The moment she puts on her long coat and starts walking in the night Beckinsale becomes the definition of badass and that’s pretty much how her performance is throughout the film. Let’s be honest here, the Selene character doesn’t need too much acting range and while Beckinsale does infuse enough emotion to the character, her main goal is to look cool and deliver on the action front which she does to total perfection.

The only aspect were Underworld Awakening falters a bit is in the script department. The plot is pretty thin and straight-forward much like in the other films, but while in the other films the plots felt more contained and belonging to the mythology established by these characters, in Underworld Awakening the plot is just way too generic and familiar especially if you’ve seen any action film. Then there’s the dialogue, which for the most part of is okay but there are a few lines that not even I can overlook. When a character is talking about corruption and says “this goes all the way to the top” you can’t help but roll your eyes and call bullshit. There a millions way you can say that and the fact that the writers settled for that line leads me to believe that they didn’t place too much effort or thought in dialogue. I imagine it doesn’t help that there were at least 6 people sharing writing duties and if we’ve learned anything from Green Lantern is that when more than five people write a script the results are a barely cohesive story and cliche dialogue.

However, the directors and Kate Beckinsale distract you enough so that those shortcomings don’t become unbearable. Moreover, not all of the dialogue is like that line previously mention and again, if you like the Underworld films there’s a huge chance you’re not watching this one for the thoughtful and meaningful dialogue. Underworld Awakening is a definite return to form for the franchise and with such a great pairing of directors and Beckinsale I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to the future sequels. This film is mindless action fun that delivers all the thrills and epically badass moments you never even knew you expected, and Beckinsale has established herself as the ultimate action leading actress. This dear ladies and gentlemen is a fucking vampire film done right.

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