Underworld

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

At heart, this is an old-fashioned monster flick decked out with Hollywood's full battery of high-tech visual effects. It's as goofy as it is gory -- stay away if you don't like in-your-face mayhem.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's Shakespearean in its political machinations and closer to "Saving Private Ryan" and "Starship Troopers" than to "Dracula" or "The Howling."

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

However much Underworld recycles elements from other films, it carries us into a well-constructed, convincingly scary world worth visiting.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The filmmakers' decision to go with prosthetic enhancements rather than CGI gives the snouts, fangs and snapping jaws a refreshingly tactile look.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It is the perfectly cast Beckinsale who lifts Underworld out and away from the film’s many moments of silly gravitas and steers it into a truly interesting take on the whole vampires 'n' werewolves genre.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Riddled with ammunition for what Alfred Hitchcock called the "Plausibles"--those poor-sport moviegoers who insist on pointing out a movie's inconsistencies instead of simply enjoying the ride

ReelViews James Berardinelli

An example of a vampire movie for the new century -- stylish, gothic, gory, and loud.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

As murky and derivative-looking as the film is, it moves with an authority that pummels you into submission.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Has one other thing in common with "The Matrix Reloaded" -- too much story, too many angles.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Visually it's wild fun, since fledgling feature director Len Wiseman started off in production design, and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos's diverse credits span from "Godzilla" to "Stuart Little." Yet with Underworld's guilty pleasures come copious clinkers, from its nuts-and-bolts narrative foundation to Wiseman's inability to direct actors beyond cartoonish interaction.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The funny thing about all this is that a half-hour into Underworld I couldn't wait for it to be over. When it really was over, I couldn't wait for the next installment. Go figure.

Miami Herald Charles Savage

A loud and relentlessly overstated B-movie, and yet not entirely stupid.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It's so impossible to care about the characters in the movie that I didn't care if the vampires or werewolves won. I might not have cared in a better movie, either, but I might have been willing to pretend.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Though it sometimes feels as if it's four hours long, Underworld has going for it an intriguing fantasy premise, an eventful plot and a look that is diverting, if finally a bit monotonous.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Takes itself so seriously that it never has fun with its shopworn genre elements.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Alas, as is often the case with lower-end genre movies, the story cooked up by Wiseman and his friends, actor Kevin Grevioux and the film's screenwriter, Danny McBride, is decidedly less important than the look of the film and its influences.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A slick disappointment -- though there's much unintentional humor to be enjoyed.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

By the end, I was starting to ponder questions like, If a vampire mates with a lycan-vamp hybrid, which parent will have to convert?

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

All of this is accomplished with buckets of blood, but almost no sense of flesh: It's hard to recall a more sexless vampire flick.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

So clotted with back story that the Romeo and Juliet-style romance between a warrior vampire and a reluctant werewolf never has a chance to breath, Len Wiseman's revisionist horror tale is all look and no bite.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Beautiful in its dark, contrasting blues and blacks, Underworld is nonetheless a remarkably humorless movie, and not even the adroitly hammy Bill Nighy, as the vampire king, can leaven the overwrought seriousness of it all.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This is the silliest horror movie I've seen in years, though some of the special effects are pretty good.

The New York Times Anita Gates

Achieves only loudness, aggressive confusion and one of the silliest head-splittings in film history.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Beckinsale delivers even if Underworld doesn't quite manage to follow through on its initial promise.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A hollow, relentless mess.

Slate David Edelstein

125 minutes is a long time to stare at a movie that's basically in bleached blue-and-white with occasional splotches of brick red. The palette reinforces the monotony of the storyline.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Not since "Battlefield Earth" pitted overacting, nine-foot-tall Psychlos against puny man-animals has there been an interspecies match-up this perversely uninteresting.

Film Threat Kevin Carr

There's too much pretension in this film. Lots of intense stares into the camera. Lots of uncomfortably hip clothes. Lots of pompous names for themselves.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Plays less like a novel re-imagining of a classic if campy narrative than a drearily self-conscious exercise in Know Your Film References.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Neither side is worth rooting for in this ridiculous blood feud, which features some of the year's most laughable dialogue.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

"Your incompetence is most taxing," says the chief vampire (Bill Nighy). A line that pretty much nails this rusty Blade.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Could use script transfusion, or at least a few quarts of levity.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It needs a wooden stake AND a silver bullet through its script.

Village Voice Alex Pappademas

Speedman's such a nonentity here I worried that the theater air-conditioning would blow him off the screen.