As a man of my word, I went to see Underworld: Evolution last night after work. It started off innocently enough, with me playing pinball before the movie. Someone had left the machine after only playing one ball, and it was a Lord of the Rings machine which was kind of cool. I finished that and headed into the theater.
I sat down in my usual middle of the back row. As I watched the coca-cola trivia reel thing that they do before the show, the place started to fill up. And by Monday standards, it was probably a full house, dispite having only about a dozen or so people in there. We were already off to a good start, then someone sat down in my row. 2 people actually. Wearing some sort of cologne or perfume. I don't know, but they were wearing a LOT of it. They were a good ten seats away and my eyes were watering. That however, is social commentary best left to another forum, this is about movies, and I swear I'm getting to it.
The lights go down, the Coke commercials begin. Actually, the commercials went by pretty quick, there were I think 3 of them and they were surprisingly short. Then the previews, a quick rundown: Slither looks silly but interesting. Pulse looks cool (in that Hey! I'm a remake of a japanese movie! kind of way). Silent Hill looks a lot more promising than I had originally thought. Ultraviolet looks REALLY good. Final Destination 3 looks like, well, like everything I didn't care to see about the first 2 *shrug*. And When A Stranger Calls just looks like another dumb remake.
Right, the movie. It starts in 1202 AD. Viktor, Amelia and Marcus are trying to capture Marcus' brother, the first lycan, William. Flash forward to the present day. Selene and Michael are on the run, Kraven returns to the mansion to kill Marcus before he wakes up. Too late. Marcus has already been woken up thanks to the dead werewolf left lying there in the first movie.
The movie moves pretty fast and there's always something going on. Marcus kills everything and comes after Michael and Selene to find out where his brother is imrisoned. As they go on, Selene and Michael get help from some unlikely allies...and I don't mean the lycans.
The continuity was surprisingly good. Everything really picked up where the first one left off, so very little time was spent establishing the principal characters. That is also what allowed the movie to pick up a full head of steam so quickly. As the movie went on, I could really feel myself physically reacting to the fighting on screen. I was literally on the edge of my seat.
It was everything I wanted out of the sequel. And it was worth every penny of the $8.75 I paid to see it. My single complaint is that where the first movie worked so hard to avoid calling the lycans "werewolves", the sequel was pretty haphazard about it.
You have to be willing to buy what they're selling. If you couldn't do that and you didn't like the first one, I'm not sure that the sequel will change your mind. But if you DID like the first one grab your wallet and go. It's worth it.
