When you’ve reached part three in a movie franchise and you’ve realised that making it a prequel, and that dropping the main selling point may have affected your box office, what do you do? Make more hairy swearwolf and vampire movies of course. That’s exactly what you should do! I mean, it’s a tactic that’s been going on for years in Hollywood; to rinse a known, and existing IP for all it’s worth, in the name of making a quick buck. Usually in a desperate attempt to satiate fans of certain characters or franchises, and often at the expense of a decent story, sadly. Just look at the Die Hard and Terminator franchises. The first three Die Hard movies are great, and showcase the trials and tribulations of Bruce Willis’ weary, wise-cracking cop perfectly. Then the series lost its way and, sadly due to Willis’ unfortunate health issues, the franchise won’t see the legendary actor returning to it. Unless AI has its nefarious way that is. The Terminator series should have been crushed in a factory press after the second movie, in my opinion, but alas we keep getting movies that attempt to recapture the magic of the early installments but end up being a poor imitation of a once great series. Also, don’t get me started on what Disney has done to Star Wars. Jar Jar Binks isn’t looking too bad now is he? Thoughts? Which brings us back to the massively fun, if flawed Underworld series. These movies are hugely popular, and for good reason, but is the series becoming like one of those other franchises that should have been staked through the heart by this point? Horror-wise, there are countless franchises that have attempted to continue a series as best they can, but unfortunately each entry feels like the production team are desperately picking scraps out of what may have previously worked so well. The Halloween franchise has had some amazing entries, and the first installment is an all time classic, but it’s also spat out some duds. You can also add the Friday 13th, Saw, Texas Chainsaw, Elm St franchises as further examples. Don’t you dare criticize the Critters series, mind, they’re all awesome. Well, OK, they’re all mostly awesome, for various reasons…So, with the return of everyone’s favorite ‘death dealer’ Selene, and with it being a direct sequel to 2006’s Underworld: Evolution, can the fourth entry in the series buck the trend of diminishing returns? Well, dust off your leather pants and get ready to kick some werewolf butt, probably in slo-mo, here on WTF happened to Underworld: Awakening.
If you’ve kept up to date with our series on Underworld, you’ll know that I dig these movies, warts and all. Of course, they’re not masterpieces of evolutionary film-making, but they’re simply fun escapism. With a healthy dose of S&M based action and terrible CGI thrown in for good measure. Plus, the fact that we’re talking about the fourth entry in the series, means that the inbuilt fanbase have once again invested enough time, and their hard-earned dollar, to help keep the franchise afloat. For this reviewer at least, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans suffered a little due to Rhona Mitra not being able to out Beckinsale, Kate, plus a less-than-engaging narrative, and some terrible VFX letting it down. The action was at least fun and it featured a hilarious sex scene on a cliff edge, plus the dark ages period setting was a great fit for the fantastical shenanigans on display. Plus, Bill Nighy was great. Which, let’s face it, is no big surprise.
It seems that the studio weren’t just content with having the acrobatic Selene very much back in black for this latest entry in the swearwolves vs vampires face-off, because they also had another trick up their greedy sleeves. That’s right gore-hounds, despite the format being very much an expensive gimmick most of the time, Underworld: Awakening (watch it HERE) was released in glorious 3D, alongside its traditional 2D format. The industry was in the middle of the conversion from 35mm to digital projection and, as I remember well, being part of that transition in the UK, it meant that 3D post-converted movies were all the rage. For better, and for worse. As we all know, Avatar was designed with 3D in mind, each scene carefully crafted to make the most of the polarizing format. The film isn’t looked back on as fondly as other movies in the director’s back catalogue, such as Aliens and The Terminator for example, but its massive success led to studios like Warner Bros. bolting on the 3D effect to existing movies. Which looked horrendous.
However, Awakening was one of the first movies to be shot using the Red Epic digital cameras, so at least the production was thinking laterally about how the format could be used to enhance the cinema experience. We’ll take a closer look into the reception of the movie, and its 3D elements a little later on in the video. The use of 3D in cinema has noticeably declined in recent times due to several reasons; audience fatigue, poor quality conversions, limited creativity, technical limitations, streaming and on-demand services, plus the considerable costs involved in making 3D movies. Avatar, and its upcoming sequels may buck this trend again, because blue cats in space seem to be a huge draw for audiences still.
The fourth movie in the popular, and polarizing, Underworld franchise had been in development since 2009, when Len Wiseman first came up with the story for the movie. It was also supposed to be the first original sequel in the series as the first two movies began as one long script. Awakening’s script went through several versions between 2009 and 2011, by various writers, until a version by one of the credited writers, Michael Straczynski, wrote his version in 2010, just as Beckinsale came back onboard. Wiseman also contributed, and made changes to the script and by the time the film went into production, it did so without a finished script. Which, horror fans, is never a good sign.
In March 2011, production began on the movie at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. With the script having undergone several changes, a lot of the initial promotional material was based upon earlier storylines; which meant that Antigen was originally called BioCom, Selene’s incarceration was for fifteen years instead of twelve, plus her daughter in the movie was originally called Nissa and was fourteen instead of eleven years old. Also, the title of the movie went through several different iterations before Awakening was settled on, with both Underworld: New Dawn and Underworld: New Moon thankfully jettisoned.
On direction duties this time were Swedish filmmakers and screenwriters, Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. Their previous work where they collaborated as directors includes the awesomely titled short, Disco Kung Fu, TV shows S.P.U.N.G and Snapphanar, plus movies Storm from 2005 and Shelter from 2010. They’re also well known as writers on 2016’s Midnight Sun, The Bridge from 2016, with Mårlind also writing Swoon from 2019. They obviously had a lot of history of working together but found that the various script rewrites had an effect on the production, with the pair not overly clear on what the tone of the movie should be. They said in interviews that nobody was “super happy” with the script, and its constant changes throughout production saw the tone going from humorous and ‘wink wink’ irony to being more serious like the original films. Len Wiseman was apparently often called in for a last minute re-write on a scene the day before it was due to be filmed. This was a constant theme throughout production, leading to confusion for all concerned when the cameras were rolling.
Despite the production being problematic, at least the film had its original death dealer, Selene, back in her leather outfit, and also seemingly unwilling to give Trinity her coat back anytime soon. Joining her as part of the principal cast members are India Eisley as Eve, the hybrid daughter of Selene and Michael Corvin, who only appears in archive footage, plus one scene where it’s a body double awkwardly sitting in for the absent Scott Speedman. We also get some acting gravitas in the form of the Lannister boo hiss bad guy himself, Charles Dance, as vampire Thomas, who really is far too good an actor to be picking up a handy paycheck in these movies. Playing his son, David, is Divergent star Theo James, whose career has been on the ascendency ever since. Michael Ealy is Detective Sebastian, Stephen Rea is Dr. Jacob Lane, Sandrine Holt plays Lida, Kris Holden-Reid is Quint, a super Lycan and son of Dr. Lane. We also get appearances from Robert Lawrenson, Ron Wear, William Frances, plus an uncredited part for Wes Bentley as one of the Antigen scientists.
The plot of Underworld: Awakening is pretty straight-forward; human forces have cottoned on to the existence of the vampire and swearwolves clans and decide that the warring S&M clad factions must be wiped out by any means necessary, thus resulting in an all out war to eradicate both species. On hand to save the day, however, is the returning death dealer, and new mum, Selene who leads the battle against humankind by delivering clunky dialogue in that lovely plummy English accent, while also attempting to save her superpowered daughter, Eve, from the hands of Antigen’s nefarious scientists. You see, Dr Lane would really like to perfect the Lycan race (they probably swear too much for his liking) and needs Eve’s super hybrid DNA in order to do so.
The movie opens with a ‘previously on Underworld’ montage where Selene narrates over a bunch of action scenes before it delves into how she was captured, plus the vampire/lycan monster that she’s in love with. To be fair it’s a decent opening sequence, and if you’re not familiar with the Underworld series, it catches you right up! The vampires and swearwolves have been driven underground, and evil organization, Antigen, seems to be doing something pretty dodgy with the frozen bodies of Selene and Scott Speedman’s body double. Eve is the unfortunate guinea pig at the center of these experiments and once Selene escapes, after being frozen for twelve years, then discovers she has a daughter, she’s pretty fucked off.
Unfortunately, or I guess that should be ‘fortunately’; I never had the opportunity to see Underworld: Awakening in 3D when it was first released in cinemas, and judging by the various reports on the 3D version, I’m not missing out. The movie is, admittedly, a decent action flick, and although the CGI is once again pretty bad, there’s still some fun to be had with the gore on display. Directors Marlind and Stein clearly know how to move the camera around and for an adult fantasy flick like this, it’s good to see so much claret being sprayed around on screen. Even if a lot of it is a dodgy CGI effect.
The movie’s performances are fine, because nobody has anything much to do other than look good in leather and kill things. Which is the series’ hallmark to be fair. Beckinsale looks great as usual and her on screen daughter is enough of a Selene-like prodigy to make her introduction to the series worthwhile. Letting the movie down is the troubled script writing process and basic plot; kid goes missing, people search for the kid, bad people get in the way, loads of killing ensues. Rinse and repeat. It’s overly simple and doesn’t really add anything new or revolutionary to the franchise, but you know what? I had a good time revisiting the movie again and it’s always nice to see a super Lycan blown to smithereens by a grenade.
Underworld: Awakening opened at number one at the domestic box office, grossing $24 million over the weekend of January 20th – 22nd, 2012. It didn’t have too much competition for its male-skewed demographic, with only the likes of Red Tails, Contraband and Disney nemesis Gina Carano’s actioner Haywire in its way. It eventually grossed $62 million in North America, and another $97 million overseas, bringing a worldwide total of $160 million, making it the highest grossing film in the franchise.
Critically, the movie was, unsurprisingly, met with disdain by critics who clearly need to lighten up. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie currently has a score of 25% against seventy seven reviews, with an approval rating of 4.2/10. Empire magazine gave the film a two stars review, saying that the movie is, “not a complete disaster, but also not the vampire / werewolf mash we’ve always wanted”. Den of Geek were more fair in their appraisal of the film, saying that, “ as action movies go, it was pretty good. The Underworld series seems to have improved with this particular outing, especially compared to the first of the four way back in 2003. It may not be the smartest movie at the multiplex, but it’s perfectly acceptable mindless entertainment”. Ultimately, I think that sums the movie up pretty well. The franchise is certainly polarizing, but if you can see past its flaws, there’s a lot to admire.
More importantly though, I’d love to hear about what YOUR opinion is, as that is what matters to us most here at JoBlo; so let us know your thoughts of Underworld: Awakening in the comments section. Does the return of Beckinsale’s leather clad Selene resurrect your interest in the franchise, or does it suffer the often diminishing returns of sequel-itis? I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this one, you wonderful gore-hounds, and we’ll see you again for more S&M clad vampire and swearwolf action, very soon…Thanks for watching!
A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!