Underworld: Evolution (2006)

Out of all the films in the 'Underworld'-series, this one is probably my favourite, for several reasons, actually.

Allow me to explain.

The story picks up immediately where the first one left off. Sure, you get a introductory scene set in the past about the first two brothers, Marcus and William, the originators of all things vampire and werewolf. They were only hinted at in the previous outing. Then Kate Beckinsale's Selene recaps the entire first film in about two minutes, which is rather unnecessary (unless you haven't seen the first one). But after that, we're immediately off! Kraven returns to kill Marcus, who has already been awoken by the blood of the dead Lycan in the vault. Realizing all the elders are dead, Marcus sets out to free his twin brother William. But he doesn't know where William is being held, only Selene knows because her father was the one commissioned to build the prison centuries ago. So now Selene and Michael have to escape Marcus and make sense of everything that is happening. Along the way, they also run into Alexander Corvinus, the granddaddy of all immortals until everything comes to a climactic battle amidst the ruins of an ancient castle.

So what does this one do better than the previous outing?

Quite a number of things.

For starters, the character of Selene finally gets a personality. No offense to Kate Beckinsale, but in the first one, she was supposed to be this ultra-cool assassin type, but she often came across as stale and cardboard-y. Here, she is allowed to show emotions, which works better and her dialogue is a lot snappier. Sure, she has those typical action hero quips, but she gets to play with her character a lot more, which is nice. Scott Speedman still doesn't do a lot, but he gets more screentime as the hybrid, so that's cool. But what really makes this one better is that this time, the makers chose several British character actors to fill in the other roles. Tony Curran is having a blast as Marcus and it is great to see him in a meatier role (pun intended). You will most often know him as a side character in other films (coincidentally, also as a vampire in the second Blade-film), but here he gives Marcus that intensity and slight over-the-top-ness that he needed. He doesn't chew the scenery quite like Bill Nighy can do from time to time, but it works. Alexander Corvinus is played by none other than Derek Jacobi (legend!). That makes sense, because if you want someone with the gravitas to play the eldest of the immortals, you need someone like this. Fair enough, he isn't in the film long, but he is memorable.

My personal favourite is probably Steven Mackintosh as the chronicler Tanis. Weaselly, conniving yet intelligent, he is so memorable that it's a shame he is not in this more.

You still get the blue filter over everything, even though some other colours seep through from time to time, signalling the changes in Selene. The action is fast paced and there's a lot of it, more than the previous one. Occasionally, the editing is a little choppy, which is a shame, but for some reason, I can more easily forgive this one than certain other films with choppy editing.

My only real gripe with this one is that it is focused very much on the vampires, relegating the Lycans to an afterthought. They are barely in this one except for William. The design for William is great though. In order to set him apart from all the other Lycans, they gave him a grey/white colour and his head is a lot more akin to that of a wolf instead of the blunter snouts of the other Lycans. They loved this design so much, it became much more prevalent in the later entries of the series, which then of course does away with the special nature of it. But here, it looks great. William is played by Brian Steele, so you know his performance will be great as always. There is some CG in the effects (most notably bloodsplatter), but for the most part there are lots of practical ones and the CG is used to do stuff that is kind of hard to pull off, so the integration mostly works. Check the final scenes where William is jumping around: both CG and practical are mixed and it still looks decent, because they did their very best to give the creature weight during the CG-parts, something lots of films tend to forget. The other werewolf transformations are a little iffy, though.

Before I forget: this one ups the gore quite a lot. Yay!

'Underworld: Evolution' is an entertaining film that whizzes by at breakneck speed. Believe me, it's lots of fun.