You know those funny little bits they have on Late Night shows where they walk out onto the street and ask unsuspecting people questions that make them appear kinda dumb? Kimmel did one recently where he asked people if they like Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act better. Stuff like that. If one was to go out onto the street to ask people how many Underworld movies there are, not only would they not know (I think it's 5, but I'm still not entirely sure) but any answer they gave wouldn't be as dumb as this dumbass movie. The Underworld franchise, much like the Resident Evil franchise, has been peppered into our theaters sparingly over the past fifteen years. Yes. Fifteen years. The first Underworld film, which I actually surprisingly enjoyed, was enough to launch a decade-and-a-half franchise of pure dumb as shit nonsense. I've even read that there's a sixth entry already in the works. These movies need to stop. At least Resident Evil has had the good sense to stop it's run... that is at least for a few years until it's rebooted.
Ohhhhhhhh, let's see what's happened here. The damn movie thinks it's a compelling TV show because it begins with a "here's what you missed last week" intro. This is more necessary because no one remembers what happened in the last Underworld movie. Seriously, I'll give you twenty bucks right now if you can tell me what the last Underworld movie was called without looking it up. Apparently, Selene (Kate Beckinsale) had a half-vampire, half-werewolf, half-strong blue guy daughter and the werewolves, aka Lycans, want her because she's got... strength? Power? Abilities....? I'm not actually sure why they want her. So, Selene has been exiled from the vampires for killing the head vampire in the first movie (seriously, we're five movies deep and they're still talking about events from the first movie as if they happened two days ago... what in the actual shit has been going on plot-wise in the rest of these movies??). But, she's also being hunted by Lycans because she's a vampire and they want her blood because she's got... strength? Power? Abilities....? Yeah... I also don't know why they want her... or why she's apparently invincible.
Anyway, so there's this new Lycan asshole named Marius... he's some long-haired, skinny emo fuck who wants Selene and her daughter for... um... reasons? But, he's like super strong and has strength? Power? Abilities....? Jesus Christ this is getting to be too much for me. So, the vampires realize that the Lycan army is coming for them in a... ahem... blood wars... situation and so they need Selene to come back and train a bunch of smaller pasty emo fucks in the ways of the "death dealer". She comes back and BANG! BOOM! Double-cross! SMASH! WHOOSH! Another double cross! POW! KA-BLAMMO! Third double cross...what???? Didn't see that shit coming! The movie is literally one double-cross after another and one old character from past entries getting offed after another. It literally makes no goddamn sense. I was excited because with a title like Blood Wars it sounds like some really epic shit is about to go down in Underworld town. Plus, it's 2017 and stakes get seriously upped in movies these days, so in theory, you're gonna have a good time. In practice, however, it's quite the opposite. Where the movie sets it up so that it looks like Selene is going to train an army to fight in said blood wars... the double-crosses get in the way and there is no blood wars to be found. Sure, there's some fighting between vampires and Lycans... but blood wars... nah, nothing that cool.
Speaking of it being 2017... what the fuck, CGI department? What 3rd grader with a Dell from 1996 did you hire to do the visual effects for you? The first movie used puppetry and practical effects, but the rest have gone all CGI. So, tell me... how are we five movies deep and the CGI is getting worse? I just watched a straight-to-Redbox movie with Nic Cage and Tom Sizemore (yeah, Tom Sizemore) called USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage which was made on a $30 budget and it had shark attack effects stronger than this damn movie which was made by SONY!!! Okay... enough about how shitty the visuals are. Let's talk about the story some more-- uh... halfway through the movie Marius straight up kills Selene... then she comes back from the dead as like some Vampire ghost who isn't immortal, but she DOES have new blonde streaks in her hair! I'm dead serious. It's even dumber than that.
These movies used to be kinda fun. Okay, well most of them have been pretty stupid, but there's a cool little mythology to them and the first one, despite some seriously bad acting from supporting players, was actually a pretty decent movie. The rest, however, have had so many problems, if it wasn't one of the only franchises with a female lead, I'd say it needs to end. Really though, all it needs is one good script and maybe another recognizable face that isn't Beckinsale or literally anyone from Game of Thrones to accompany her and we could have a Fast and Furious style resurrection on our hands here.
It's a really bad movie, but it does happen to fall into the category that it's so bad that it's kinda fun. If you have that friend who can watch movies with you and the two of you can make fun of it the whole time, then it's a decent choice. And, just like all of the other entries, the violence is very stylized and stunning. There's ample amounts of ridiculous blood, but that's pretty much the only thing being offered here. The movie doesn't know anything other than predictable double-crosses. It's like going into a new James Bond film with a new Bond-girl... there's a 50/50 chance she's going to betray him. This movie is that Bond girl.
D+
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