underworld-posterThe prequel movie Underworld: Rise of the Lycans tells the story of how the war between the vampires and lycans began.  If you’ve seen Underworld and/or Underworld: Evolution, then you already know how the war began.  To quote the Rolling Stones, “Love, it’s a bitch.”

Rise details Lucian’s birth and his rise from being vampire Viktor’s pet to his nemesis as leader of the lycans.  Along the way Lucian falls in love with Sonja, Viktor’s daughter.  Love between bloodsuckers and werewolves is forbidden, the lycans are slaves to the vampires.  Sure, the lycans are trained to guard the vampires during the day while they sleep, but there is to be no fraternizing with the forced labor.  The main problem with Rise of the Lycans is that it doesn’t really give us anything new.  Fans of the series already know how this story is going to turn out, we know who lives and who dies.

Evolution’s opening scenes took place in the Dark Ages, and that whole sequence was cool.  I thought, when I saw it, that if they set an entire movie in the Dark Ages it would be so awesome a film.  I was wrong.  Rise has none of the go-for-the-throat guts and glory of Underworld: Evolution’s opening sequence.  This is more of a mild uprising.

Rhona Mitra (Sonja) and Bill Nighy (Viktor), great actors both, look bored most of the time when they’re not staring off into the distance.  When they do stare off into the distance (which they do quite a lot), they just look constipated.  Michael Sheen (Lucian), another great actor, is saddled with a werewolf version of Braveheart.  The CGI werewolves are tedious and the final battle is flat.

If you’ve never seen any of the Underworld movies, or know nothing of their universe, you may like it better than I did; start here and work your way up to better things.  For fans of the series, it’s nice to look at.

2.5 out of 5
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