Just saw it yesterday because it was part of a double-feature with Kill Bill (which was actually better than I’d expected). While not as actively bad as some action movies I’ve seen, there certainly wasn’t anything that impressed.
In the first five minutes, we had:
-A designated hero (“the script says I’m the good guy, so root for me even if my actions aren’t even remotely admirable”). By the end of Selene’s opening monologue, I was already rooting for the werewolves.
-Teeny little handguns that can spray over thirty rounds each in rapid fire.
-Everything shot with filters to make every scene as dark as possible.
And it never got any better. I was bothered later on by the tendency for characters to unquestioningly believe The Big Revelation, even if it came from someone they’d hated for centuries and ran completely opposite to everything they’d believed up until then.
I agree with you here…Kraven was absolutely terrible. Aside from him and the second in command werewolf with the horribly fake voice that kept making everyone in the theater laugh, I found the acting pretty decent overall. But Kraven really got my goat and his scenes were just terrible.
**
Slight nitpick about this It wasn’t Lucion that told Selen about Viktor’s slaughter of her family, it was Kraven. Source isn’t that much more credible in her mind, but does carry a bit more validity. Still, it would have been so much simpler for Viktor to just say “He’s a liar bent on destroying our clan, who are you going to believe, him or me?” and winning her trust back.
And not really a spoiler because you can predict it from right off the bat, but why is it vampires who are several hundred years old fall in love with mortals so damn easily? In the grand scheme of things, Michael’s a friggen four year old mentality compared to Selen, yet it takes one look at those baby blues, and she was hooked (he may have had brown eyes, I didn’t really notice). It was the same thing with Buffy I never understood. Aside from the potential to bang a really hot chick, why would a 400 year old feel he had any kind of romantic connection to a 16 year old?
I thought the fight sequences were great and the effects on those werewolfs…they looked real. Just the right amount of gore too. I found it a little tedious in th emiddle of the film…but I suppose that stuff needed to be mentioned or we wouldn’t have understodd the movie. Overall it was a great film and I’ll be buying it.
But he saved her life! After being stabbed in the shoulder with a knife! and passing out from blood loss! she could have drowned for gods sake! Thats just so fucked up that i can’t even get up the energy to make a smart ass remark about it. Oh nevermind, there it goes.
I liked Blade 2, but the way they portrayed the vampires really bugged me. At the beginning of the movie they have super powers, then by the end they’re no more powerful than a normal human. I mean, c’mon. Using flashlights to see in the dark? Climbing up short ladders? That was a more experienced movie making team and they should have done better.
[quote]
Since Beckinsale is engaged to Wiseman…*This to me is the most tragic part of the whole deal. Schmuck like him doesn’t deserve a hottie like that. :mad:
I was more bugged by the fact that the vampires “Elite” commando team were total idiots. The average (human) police SWAT team could likely kick their ass.
What bothered me about the vampires in Blade 2 was that it seemed any knick from a silver item meant instant death. In the first one, you cut a vampire’s hand off, and he’s left with no hand until it grows back. But in Blade 2, vamps were being killed from non-leathal gunshots and knife wounds (I’m sorry, as much as I’d wish I was dead after getting stabbed in the nuts, it’s not a fatal wound).
Which brings me to what Tremmie said…I’d completely forgotten about how utterly stupid it was that Selene nearly blead to death from a friggin cut on her shoulder? And this was one of the toughest warriors the vampires had…no wonder she was the only survivor at the end.
I just rented it and saw it tonight. Given the reviews I’ve read it was better than expected, though had I not read anything about it I think I would have expected better. I can understand why it reminds people of the Blade movies, but what I don’t get is everyone comparing it to the Matrix movies. Because people are wearing tight black leather, trenchcoats, capes, it’s raining, the entire film is tinted one color, and people fight? They don’t even fight the same way in Underworld (and I can’t understand how the vampires survive vs. the lycans simply by shooting guns all the time.) Plot wise it isn’t like the Matrix and except for the one scene near the beginning where the bullets slowed down, the special effects aren’t really like it either.
Heck, even a version of the fluid in glow sticks could probably give off UV light, and that’s just a chemical reaction, not radioactivity. Also, radiation is deadlier when ingested, so a tiny amount of “sunlight” might bounce off the skin externally but wreak havoc internally.
It’s believable to me that a liquid bullet form of allergen or toxin would be deadlier since it would travel around in the circulatory system. They could’ve armed themselves with paintball guns.
Don’tchaknow, every action film after The Matrix that isn’t bright and shinny is a direct rip-off of the Matrix. I thought every movie gower got that memo.
My roommate and I went to see it because we love Goth, and because I love Kate Beckinsale (Ever since Cold Comfort Farm). Mmmmm. Kate Beckinsale in leather with a gun is a good enough reason to see any movie. We both walked out of Underworld going, “Whoa, that was watchable!”
I loved the science, and the UV bullets and molten silver bullets. Great ideas. I loved the betrayal of Vitkor, and I loved the vampire setting–all wasted and stagnant. The werewolves weren’t done to my tastes–I always prefer them to be actual wolves, rather than wolf-people. So I cheered for the heroin-chic side.
It wasn’t Casablanca, but it was almost worth what I paid to see it. For the record, I’m female, and I didn’t like the Matrix I or III, loved II, and thought Blade was okay. Haven’t seen II yet.
I wonder if the werewolves were supposed to be more sympathic because I was rooting for them the whole time over the vampires.
Vampires sit all day in a big mansion, in a big victorian room looking depressed(like the worst kind of goth) vs. Werewolves who are living in the sewer trying to survive.
Also the gun thing bugged me a lot, particulary when Selene shot through the floor without ever reloading her guns. Also, in two encounters where werewolves and vampires are shooting it out at close range with little manuvering(selene and the strike team in the ammo cache and the fight in the tunnels near the end), the vampires will take nary a hit while the werewolves will get slaughtered. Give me a ****ing break, so you can’t arbitrarly have guns with invisible belts of ammo feeding into them. This is not the Matrix, and even in the Matrix, you saw the agents dodging.
I wonder if the werewolves were supposed to be more sympathic because I was rooting for them the whole time over the vampires.
Vampires sit all day in a big mansion, in a big victorian room looking depressed(like the worst kind of goth) vs. Werewolves who are living in the sewer trying to survive.
Also the gun thing bugged me a lot, particulary when Selene shot through the floor without ever reloading her guns. Also, in two encounters where werewolves and vampires are shooting it out at close range with little manuvering(selene and the strike team in the ammo cache and the fight in the tunnels near the end), the vampires will take nary a hit while the werewolves will get slaughtered. Give me a ****ing break, so you can’t arbitrarly have guns with invisible belts of ammo feeding into them. This is not the Matrix, and even in the Matrix, you saw the agents dodging.
