PREVIEW:Underworld: Evolution

Release Date: January 20, 2006

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy, Danny McBride, Michael Sheen

(out of 4)

If the title is meant to suggest something, then I don't think I got the message; "Underworld: Evolution" is anything but a progressive move from the original 2003 feature. Director Len Wiseman's hard-edged, goth-MTV style bodes no real accomplishments or improvements to his first film and instead, actually becomes more sloppy and dreary in comparison.

"Underworld: Evolution" opens with an intro that takes us back to the 11th century when the war between the vampires and lycans (werewolves, for you non-genre fans) supposedly began. We're told a tale of two brothers - one bitten by a bat, the other by a werewolf, who set off a chain of events that begin the neverending war between the two species. William, the brother who became a lycan and infects an entire race of werewolves, is eventually captured by a group of vampires led by the other brother Markus (Tony Curran). William is locked and caged for eternity, with Markus eventually meeting his fate and locked in a grave.

We flash forward to a voiceover by Seline (Kate Beckinsale) tries to explain in a ridiculously terse three-minute summary the events that transpired in the first movie. Having fought for the vampires for centuries, the orphaned Seline was eventually betrayed by her own master Viktor (Bill Nighy) which leads her to confront and kill someone from her own kind. Markus was due to be awaken by Amelia but was killed by Kraven, a traitor to the vampires who had a lust for power and control. Instead, the blood of a Lycan manages to make its way down into Markus' grave, thus setting things up for "Underworld: Evolution."

We're now in the present day, where we're lead to believe that "Evolution" is taking place immediately after the events of the first film. With the power of the Lycan blood mixed in with his own, Markus is now a powerful hybrid that is more deadly than any creature that walks the earth. His plan? To find the grave of his long lost brother and create a new race of Lycan-Vampire hybrids to walk the Earth. Meanwhile, Seline is still in love with Michael (Scott Speedman), a human-lycan hybrid whom she fell in love from the first movie.

There are more characters and things to talk about as Seline and Michael set out to find the truth to their species and help end the war as the lines between vampire and Lycan become blurred with new threats. But to dive deeper into this story would be to say that this stuff is actually cool, and that would be falling under Len Wiseman's trap.

The entire "Underworld: Evolution" story, including the first film, plays like a graphic novel for fanatics who wear fangs and carry silver bullets at night. It has an interesting premise, but never really gives a reason for its fans to care about it. Wiseman attempts to grapple with this complex story and weave it with his murky and almost sloppy style of filmmaking. The movie plays out like one long Marilyn Manson music video and amidst all the bang and noise, he's basically trying to tell a fairy tale, which barely succeeds in capturing our attention.

Even with the film's action CGI sequences and one very could've-been-hotter sex scenes between Seline and Michael, the movie does nothing to invoke any kind of excitement. The setting is dark and dull, understandably so, but the shots are too fast paced and too rough to really grasp that anything is going on. The only real popcorn moment in "Evolution" comes at the end, when Seline leads the battle to end Markus' and William's reign. But immediately, we're given another hint that a third "Underworld" movie and then we're given the painful thought that more nonsense will eventually be coming.

"Underworld: Evolution" is too complex and too confusing, both visually and in narrative, to recommend viewing in one setting. Most fans will be scratching their heads and wondering if the first "Underworld" will be playing on TV anytime soon just so they can pick up the pieces of the mess that they witnessed. One can only hope that "Underworld 3" is titled "Underworld: Going Back to Simplicity".