There’s plenty of blood wars in the latest instalment of this tiresome franchise about war between werewolves and vampires but not much more.
Four years after the last Underworld film (titled Awakening) we now have a saga titled Blood Wars, which delivers just as promised, blood that is, and lots of it.
The plot, however irrelevant it might be to execute flicks such as this, is this: Selene (Beckinsale) is still on the run from both the Vampires and Lycans who seek her blood to become immortal. But there are some who want to end the war between the two clans once and for all.
Selene thus goes through a maze of discovery, deceit, alpine peaks, a frozen waterfall, and even that limbo spot between life and death.
So even if all these don’t make sense to you because you missed out on the first four parts of the franchise, it doesn’t take away the little bursts of adrenaline from watching Lycans turn into full-blown werewolves (and end up looking like modern enhancements of the creature from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’).
Beams of sunlight fry some unfortunate members of the vampire clan, and a serious action sequence involving two warring members goes hilariously wrong: they keep screaming and pumping bullets into each other at close quarters, only to find that both of them are immune to it. Oh, and you get a flashback, in fast-forward, from previous instalments every time someone tastes someone else’s blood.
The cinematography is washed by a constant icy-blue filter, as the camera moves through Prague’s Gothic structures and inside the lairs where all the action takes place. There really is nothing else to say about this snoozefest of a film, save for the generous dose of overacting you get from some council elders (we’re looking at you, James Faulkner) and some momentary cunnilingus for bonus entertainment.
