This review is bound to present spoilers for those who haven’t seen the movie. If you want to see the movie unspoiled, then you may wish to look elsewhere. Also, this review is based on one viewing of the movie, so precise details of the names and organizations are bound to be hazy.

Underworld is a vampire-werewolf movie (as opposed to a Vampire-Werewolf movie, but we’ll get to that in a moment or two) that pits these two supernatural legends in an action plot with a smidgen of Romeo and Juliet added in for flavor.

Selene (Beckinsale) is a vampire (either called or from a sect called the Death Dealers; its unclear from watching the movie) whose job is to hunt down the world’s remaining lycans (werewolves) following the defeat of their leader Lucian (Sheen) six hundred years ago. In a voice-over, Selene narrates the fading glory of being a vampire and how the lycans are now able to change forms at will. She, and her Peter Parker vampire companion soon follow a set of lycans into a subway system for some good solid gun fighting.

Unknown to the vampires, these lycans were following Michael Corvin (Speedman) whom they believe to be a descendant of the Corvinus family—these descendants may be able to hold both lycan and vampiric abilities, making for an abomination. In the Underworld mythos, both vampire and werewolf species stem from the first immortal’s children (one of the two children of Corvinus, the first immortal).

After the gun battle, Selene discovers that a gang of several lycans is holed up in the sewers of the city, which she brings up to the attention of the leading vampire regent, Kraven (Brolly). Dismissing the idea out of hand, Kraven turns towards the upcoming union of the two major branches (may be called covens, again unclear) of vampire bloodlines. Kraven also is regent until the elder vampires are awakened, in a few nights from the movie’s start.

Selene is reviewing her companion’s photographs (who died in the shoot-out due to some neat lycan technology, uv-irradiated bullets) and sees that the lycans were following Corvin. She goes off to hunt him down for questioning, breaks into his apartment and startles him. Corvin flees as lycans show up to capture him, only to be bitten by Lucian as he gets out of his apartment complex (lycanthropy is transmitted by being bitten, as is vampirism it seems, in this movie).

Selene, after shooting the lycans, chases after Corvin, shoots Lucian to free Corvin and the pair drive off with Lucian in pursuit. Lucian jumps on the car and stabs through the roof to impale Selene with a sword. Lucian is shaken off the car and due to the lack of blood in her, Selene crashes her car in the river, only to be saved by Corvin. From there, a minor romance buds between Selene and Corvin. Lycan-vampire romances are forbidden in vampire society.

Then the story moves into a pseudo-conspiracy tone, by unveiling that Kraven and Lucian have ties together to make Kraven the most powerful vampire. Even having Selene’s history be not what she told Corvin that it was, her elder, Viktor, murdered her family not the lycans as he had said. Kraven and Lucian plan on getting rid of the elders, by use of an abomination as vampiric elders are too strong for anything to harm them. Soon the movie has Selene turning Corvin into an abomination and the defeat of Viktor signals the end of the first of the Underworld movie series.

Underworld is going to be compared to The Matrix, its use of voice-overs and its quasi-conclusion leave the audience either hanging or happy that the movie is over. There are some elder vampires in the world, and several lycan enemies as well. Though the addition of the Neo lycan-vampire (the abomination Corvin) will have the Underworld in a fit. (“Hmm. Upgrades.”)

The action is this movie doesn’t pack the punch of The Matrix or other higher budget films, its adequate in the bullet count to keep it interesting but not much in the way of wire stunts. Most of the movie’s money had gone into the effects department and cgi. Those wanting to see a good war-form werewolf, look elsewhere as these wall-crawling beasts look more like four-legged spiders with pig snouts than wolves. Though the shifting forms in front of the camera was cool, its not up to the realism of American Werewolf in London.

I disliked the plot holes that happened towards the end of the movie, its hard to except that an elder vampire could be so easily defeated by his own sword than by an abomination (which undermines the whole reasoning for having made the abomination ion the first place).

Overall, Underworld is an okay movie to see with friends and relax rather than being carried away to a nightmare world where the two most powerful supernatural being war—Underworld doesn’t carry itself with enough seriousness to make you feel as though this might be happening, or something that you could think of as happening.

Vampire: the Masquerade and Werewolf: the Apocalypse fans will note that while some of the creatures covered have similar concepts—the vampire bloodlines, powerful vampiric elders, the dying lycan race, the lycan war form—this movie doesn’t present an adequate World of Darkness movie to have been called official. This is not to say that the unfolding White Wolf/Sony Pictures legal drama is without some merits, I just am not inundated enough to comment.