(Damn, they forgot to paint the studio wall behind us)

Same Old Story, Same Old Shooters, Same Old Stunts

With vampires and werewolves as a subject, light is clearly a problem for a movie as both legendary creatures can only exist at night. Director Len Wiseman's solution? The film is in an all-purvasive noxious dark blue tint. Does this surprise us? No. When a props assistant turns director and writer, it doesn't bode well, yet Brad-Pitt-lookalike and oxymoronically named LenWiseman has still underachieved our lowest expectations with the ham-fisted "Underworld: Evolution". Indeed, to help him write his screenplay, Wiseman has even called upon a couple of friends, Kevin Grevioux and Danny McBride, a pair of two-bit, failed actors who barely even made the end credits as passersby in a whole pile of forgotten flicks.

In any normal movie review, one is supposed to give an outline of the plot but despite seeing this, I am still blowed if I know what all this tosh is all about. Even so, the result of the "plot" is a foregone conclusion. As Selene, Kate Beckensale runs about in tight black leather kit, spraying everything with machine pistols that look like leftovers from the TV show "Miami Vice" as she tries to defend her latest beau, Michael Corvin (Torontonian Scott Speedman), from assassination by just about everyone it seems, including. no doubt, the ticket-buying public. As usual, he is the descendent of both werewolves and vampires and has the acting talents to match.

All the gratuitous violence is justified, as usual, by playing off all the old racial prejudices - Eastern Europeans are only there as backslapping grunts to get their heads shot off. Indeed, I'm surprised that they forgot to throw in a couple of terroists with towels wrapped round their heads. With the lack of even a Hollywood plot of any substance, the vacuum is soon filled trite like a corny fight in a moving truck we've seen a dozen times before, followed inevitably by the sorded sex scene and a whole bunch of outtakes from the first movie to spice it up and cut the cost. With CGI werewolves that are so badly done that it makes you want to laugh and an inconsistent plot, the whole movie seems like a random assembly of rejected celluloid clips, ruined by the film processors. And, for someone whose background was in props, couldn't Wiseman have at least ensured that Chris August, his clueless Art Director had someone paint the studio wall at the back of the set for the Romanian village scene that's a phoney as Tony Blair's smile?

How a small time clown, like Wiseman managed to talk Sir Derek Jacobi into such drivel is mystery worthy of movie itself, but, as Alexander Corvinus, he who walks around the control room of his hi-tech freighter, looking like a classic James Bond baddie, missing only the white cat and the line "Goodbye Mr. Bond". Indeed, by the end, the appearance of a shaggadelic Austin Powers might frankly have increased the non-existant credibility.

Film Critic: Robert L Thompsett

"Goodbye Mr Bond"