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70Overall package is potent. A few rock-the-house scenes of slam-bang derring-do -- are nothing short of sensationally exciting.
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63A monster chiller sequel that is visually spectacular but rather overburdened with story.
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63True to its serial roots, this equally silly but undeniably entertaining sequel to "Underworld" (2003) picks up right where its high-grossing predecessor left off and offers more of the same.
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Wiseman, a former art director and music video director, has a definite sense of style and pace, and the creature transformations are eye-popping. In addition, the cast raises the movie above the level of routine genre schlock.
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50They're still fighting in this sequel. But this is a more visually inspired, muscularly made movie than its predecessor.
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50Designed with Underworld fans in mind. Others need not apply.
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I especially like how, when Beckinsale's half-wolf, half-vampire friend Scott Speedman moves in for a kiss, you can hear the black leather of her dominatrix getup crinkle and crackle on the soundtrack like an old saddle. Sizzlin'!
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50Writer-director Len Wiseman, now the star's husband, wisely moves this sequel to the countryside and wastes less time dispensing the same grog of grisly CGI combat and mythical mumbo jumbo.
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42There's a ton of backstory behind Underworld: Evolution, which gets slightly denser and rowdier than its predecessor, but it's ultimately all in the service of a nigh-endless series of numbing, mechanical battles in which snarling protagonists and CGI monsters shoot, claw, and bloodily eviscerate each other. In other words, it's "Underworld," but more of it.
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40Unfortunately, there's little wit or genuine suspense to elevate the proceedings above the level of a cheesy comic book.
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40It's not quite quick enough to be anywhere near as gloomily engaging as the cast's original outing.
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40The plot is so convoluted that missing even five minutes at a stretch won't make any difference in your comprehension of the story.
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30With her long, black coat and midair karate-chop skills, Selene is more Matrix-y Neo than Count Dracula, which may explain why this movie is so brutally un-fun.
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30There's no guiding power at work here; it's Evolution without a shred of intelligent design.
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The fascist undercurrents of this battle remain unexplored. Maybe one day, Hollywood will figure out that pouring acting-challenged starlets into black neoprene and sticking them in front of a blue screen do not a movie make. We can but hope.
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25The esteemed actor Derek Jacobi goes slumming as someone who pulls that metal badge from the chest of a cadaver. Shakespeare it's not.
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Underworld Evolution has antecedents in literature ("Dracula"), film ("The Matrix") and song ("Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue"). How does it rip off so much, yet learn so little?
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25Humorless, confusing and not very fun to watch.
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25Classic style over substance, with some gruesome-looking creatures and settings and non-stop shooting and biting (both the vampires and werewolves get their teeth into it). But, alas, at almost two hours, it is much ado about nothing.
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20But for all her slinky, undead-chic looks, Beckinsale can't carry the film on curves alone and there's not much else here worthy of attention. Evolution's action sequences are as horribly bungled as its plot, resulting in a string of repetitive confrontations that feel toothless even by the last movie's standards.
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20Beckinsale is an elegant woman-before she was the Emma Peel of the undead, she was Jane Austen's Emma, and before she was Emma, she was passing A levels in German, French, and Russian literature-and all her stalking and seething keep the movie from being totally unwatchable.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 62 out of 89
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Mixed: 8 out of 89
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Negative: 19 out of 89
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10why are "professional critics" so dense?
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