Underworld: Awakening

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Oh yeah the Underworld series. That was a thing.

It's been amicable enough so far. Nothing spectacular. This time we get our original lead actors back, we go 3D and we get those Swedish dudes that made Shelter directing. I've still yet to see their big breakout film but it's on my list.

This entry in the series is problematic. It suffers from what so many film series or potential series seem to think is passable as a story arc, in that it only bothers to tells a small part. It's something that is increasingly pissing me off. I'm thinking specifically of films that like to break up novel adaptations in to parts in order to have more time (and make more money) so they never complete the journey and often don't get the funding to actually finish the story, leaving any potential fans with an unresolved cliffhanger or at the very least, a lot of questions. Underworld is not based on any previous stories, despite it being derivative of so many, however in the past they have managed to tell complete stories.

Awakenings sets up a new world, it introduces new ideas, some new characters. It does not play them out into any kind of story though and feels so very incomplete. They've taken a 20 minute introduction and padded it out with an hour of action. The action isn't terrible, but there are no stakes yet. Nothing is determined or explained for either side and consequently nobody cares how anything plays out yet. This could work better if all these film were watched back to back but I haven't seen any of them since the last release and this film jumps into the action so quick and never bothers to take any time to reintroduce any of the characters in a meaningful way. Nor does it ease into the action. So the entire endeavour is a whole lot of sound and fury signifying not much at all. It's the sort of thing that could retroactively become better if they do in fact make any sequels that build on the ideas presented here but it does not work as a stand alone.

The characters are as dull and cold as the cinematography. Actually I sometimes quite like this very stylised blue world but if you are going to make the next instalment of your film franchise in 3D don't choose a world where everything is pitch black and only lit in reflected hi-lights. It's nice they went to the effort to shoot in 3D but the the inter-occular reflective discrepancy is a major issue. Especially when your lead character is waring shiny black leather that has slightly different hot spots in each eye.

When there is more light in the scenes the 3D works well and also sells the CG creatures really well. The majority of the time is unfortunately spent at night in sets with shiny metal or glass and wet roads. Not good for 3D.

Some of the action beats are cool. There's definitely some nice stuff in here and I do like the reset to the world they've done but now I want to actually see some stories told in it. The chess pieces are all set up in place, so it just remains to be seen if the film makes enough money to warrant paying off the work they've done so far.