Underworld: Blood Wars is the fifth movie in the Underworld ‘Saga’. Our Vampire Hero/ Death Dealer Selene is on the run from Werewolves and even her own kind. Both sides lusting after her blood and the blood of her daughter, together they hold the key to turning tide on an ancient conflict…forever.
So is it any good?
The good thing is about this movie is that you won’t have to go back and re-watch all of the previous instalments as there’s a pretty detailed catch up at the start. Not to mention all of the epilepsy inducing flash backs scattered throughout the film. I was a fan of the first movie, but they’ve all sort of merged into one sexy/hairy mess covered in black leather and shiny latex. Vampires battling Lycians are all well in good, but when you have no real vested interest in which side wins it just becomes bad guys shooting each other in the face. This is made all the more obvious when there’s no human element at all. The weapons on both sides have advanced so far that it’s now pretty much a gun fight and their supernatural abilities are rarely used. This is often done to comical effect when characters run at each other bullets blazing and nothing happens.I think the only way you could really enjoy this movie is by maybe having a few pints beforehand. 
This is director Anna Foerster’s first movie, who having cut her teeth on TV shows such as Outlander and Criminal Minds is attempting to make it big. I don’t often point the finger at the director but let’s just say she could learn a few things from Uwe Boll. The delivery of lines and the poses the actors strike when delivering them are hilarious, all be it unintentionally funny, but funny none the less. In the screening I attended, dramatic reveals and supposedly shocking scenes were met with a loud collective laugh. It’s lucky that it is so funny because that is its only redeeming feature, well that and Kate doing her thing. It’s got a decent enough cast with 3 Games of Thrones actors (Charles Dance, Tobias Menzies and James Faulkner) and Lara Pulver (Sherlock). Lara is definitely responsible for some of the biggest laugh out loud moments of moustache twirling villainy.Although the story and dialogue are just as much to blame, cliché line after cliché line in a story that keeps flip flopping between 3 locations, returning to the same scenes over and over again. It borders on suffering from Phantom Menace style politics, as Vampires walk down corridors discussing history, bloodlines and political agenda… Ohhh scary. You’re never quite sure if you’re watching is an action movie or a tongue in cheek parody. At least the plot twists are kind enough to send you a text message in advance to let you know they’re coming.
You would think the action would save this movie but nope, there’s not a great deal of it and it just looks a bit naff. Also if I could be a movie snob for a second, this film suffers from one of my pet hates. Sometimes instead of shooting a scene in slow motion, it’s slowed down later in the edit as an afterthought. You get that sweet, sweet jittery look that takes you out of the movie. It’s also starting a Box Office War, releasing around the date as Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, I’m not sure who’s going to come out on top in that battle.
I think the only way you could really enjoy this movie is by maybe having a few pints beforehand. Look, if you loved the other movies you’ll enjoy this as it’s pretty much more of the same. Pretty people jumping out of water on wires, moustache twirling villains and of course Beckinsale firing two guns dressed in latex.
In Aussie Cinemas Now
In American Cinemas January 6