Underworld: Blood Wars (2017)

Good franchise. Good movie. Good actors. Good acting. In this installment: terrible cinematography. They were very heavy-handed with their filters. The blue tint to everything is acceptable, but then they used very high contrast and then darkened the heck out of every frame of the movie. I first saw this in a theater and I assumed the projectionist was running the projector at about 60% brightness. I hoped buying the Blu-ray would deliver the true picture. Turns out, the movie *really* is dark. Too dark. Way too dark. Every vampire in the coven was wearing 100% black outfits. Put them in a candle lit room with black walls and curtains and darkened filters and you end up with blue/white faces seemingly floating around! So frustrating. Even the photo that Netflix uses for this movie (DVD cover) is far brighter than any image in the entire movie. Maybe they should have called this movie: Pitch Black. Oh wait, that's already been used.

Funny how my hopes were low going into this film but it starts off pretty darn good - at least into the first half of it. But then the film adds super-saiyan vampires, roid raging werewolves and a boringly convoluted plot and yeah - I checked out. I must say I was a little disappointed because the Underworld series as more or less have had consistently good B-level action flicks. Whatever, it couldn't last forever because what's her name is playing a character who doesn't age while she is starting to age, because she is of course only human.

Hi Readers. Yet, another Underworld story for the vampire genre. When will it ever end. Let's move on, something a little less jaded, perhaps a movie about ghosts that don't even staze their hauntees because their heads are covered in a sheet, OOps that's been done. Lots of black outfits here, although there's some contrast with the white haired members of a northern coven. Is black the new orange, or is orange the new black. Yeah, well you won't be getting much psychoanalysis in this one, except for a sidekick to Beckinsale's character who, surprise, surprise is heir unapparent to the coven's title of jester, no, lord master - I think it is. And the ensuing jealous/zealous battle for the coveted leadership of the coven gets interrupted with a subplot about lichens (not the moss, the werewolves, though they're about on the same par, to me) coming to get revenge - I think or just eliminate/exterminate their rivals (for what, I don't recall). Yeah, this one could use some real backstory, not the "oh, the backstory is in the previous installment, and to prove that here's some clips vis a vis, the MC's delirium. Thanks, there's better horror out there, with bigger stars than Beckinsale, though not as fresh from the can or is it called DRAM, these days?

I was really hoping Blood Wars to be that film that brought the series back to Underworld 1 fidelity...but, to be fair, what we have to remember about the first one that made it so special to us was it was a whole new kind of vampire movie and one that was directly competing with the Matrix movies. At the turn of the millennium this was a whole new breed of action movie. The second movie then kept it fresh by giving us a little history, by taking us to the origins of current affairs, which would later serve as the foundation of Under World - Rise of The Lycans...which was a fantastic film.Awakening is where everything fell apart for me, but Blood Wars admittingly did a great job picking up where that appallingly/ abhorrent movie left off. They should have just consolidated elements of Awakening and Blood Wars together, leaving out the futuristic and laboratory/ research stuff that made Awakening feel too Resident Evil. Don't get me wrong, if vampires were real our government/ various organizations would be attempting to capture them and study them, but I think fans prefer that vampires largely remain phantoms and folklore to the eyes of humans fortunate enough to not meet one, while keeping this entire feudal war an underground, or "underworld" battle that only some isolated humans from time-to-time fall victim to. A reality that exists within our own, but is largely a secret. Once you spill the existence of Lycans and Vampires out to the militarized world of humans, it loses that mystery/ special feel to it...and that's precisely what Awakening started. Sure, humans were involved in Underworld 2, but they were Corvinus' men e.g. they could keep a damn secret. It wasn't some corporation doing research on Dracula --I mean, Corvinus blood.As mentioned in my title, Blood Wars was more enjoyable the second time around, but I really could not get past what they did to Selene's lips. What a silly thing to be stuck on. So much so, that I am considering turning down the saturation of my TV the next time I watch it, in hopes it reduces the pink lip gloss effect. Kate is always a beauty to behold...but why lip gloss? And what's with the fur coat? Vampires don't get cold! Other than those cosmetic/ costume choices it is an alright film, but I've always felt the series should have only ever been 80% about Selene, and her battling the corruptions within the Coven/s, and vampires/ lycans wanting her blood, post-Corvinus. It never should have been about a Michael, nor a child. Maybe they could have ended the series with a child, an heiress to Selene's Corvinus imbued blood, thereby setting the franchise up for a whole new trilogy...but alas this was not the hand we were dealt and, instead, now we have a big empty hole where Michael should be...and I don't even like him!