Review of Underworld: Blood Wars (2016) by Thequietgamer — 04 May 2017

All flash and no substance. Only without the flash. Underworld's sterile take gothic imagery is no longer stylish like it was back in 2003. The writing and characters are just as stale as the movie's environments. I suppose it's possible to care about Beckinsale and the rest if you followed the previous films, but it doesn't really change the fact that they really aren't doing anything here.

The plot just goes through the motions. We've seen these kind of villains before. Lara Pulver is certainly sexy in a Eva Green sort of way, but her character's motives are as generic as they come. To top it all off all the fantasy mumbo-jumbo going on doesn't even make good use of vampire and werewolf lore. Everyone is just content to spend the entire movie talking about blood. But let's be honest, these movies were never really popular for their story. It was mostly for the vampire vs. werewolf action. It's kind of a lot of fun to watch monsters go toe-to-toe, so I can understand the original appeal. Plus it looked like some actual effort went into the originals. Blood Wars can't even deliver much on an action front either. I appreciate the movie's liberal use of gore. However this all by the numbers and plagued by cheap, dated special effects.

It's clear not much effort went into this. The budget either wasn't big or was severely misappropriated. It's content to have a half-hearted, very generic plot and subpar action. It does nothing to actually move the series forward. I imagine those who actually still follow the series could skip Blood Wars and just wait for the next one and miss absolutely nothing. Essentially it's a generic filler chapter that feels like it was meant to test the waters in order to see if these movies can still pull in money before bothering to make a decent follow up. My advice? Don't waste your time.