The best thing that can be said about "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" is that it could have been a lot worse.
All the elements that make up the pure awesomeness of the first two movies are there - though "awesome" is definitely a relative term. No one saw "Underworld" for the emotional impact, but something is missing from "Rise of the Lycans." It might be the fact that it looks a lot like every other movie set in the Middle Ages - dark and dirty. Or it might be the fact that the plot lacks coherence. It's as if the writers stitched together all of the "looks cool" scenes that didn't make it into the first two movies and pushed the setting back 1,000 years.
It's certainly a fun movie to watch. It's hard to go wrong with a bunch of werewolves running around biting the heads off of vampires, even though it makes about as much sense as making a movie about pirates fighting ninjas - which is to say, not much sense at all. The vampires are still pretty cool, though they don't seem near as tough as they were in the first two movies. Maybe they got stronger in the intervening 1,000 years.
It is nice to see that the stop-motion werewolf transitions have been retained. That was one of a few things that set "Underworld" apart when it came out. It's an even more impressive accomplishment when there are several scenes with a dozen or more "lycans" transforming in one shot. That must have been quite a lot of work to film.
The plot really falls flat. Lucian, the main character, is pretty much the exact opposite of his character in the original film. He acts like a stupid teenager in love, not like a brilliant leader that could lead a rebellion. His love interest is equally dumb and essentially starts all the problems by running around like an idiot all the time, with the end result being a screw-up of such monumental proportions that her own father is forced to execute her.
That's the weird thing about the film. Typically, the viewer is supposed to hate the bad guy. Viktor just isn't that dislikable. In fact, the viewer almost gets a sense of sympathy for the guy. Although the average person probably doesn't care much for slavery, one can see that from his point of view he's only doing what's right. After all, lycans are dangerous, right?
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There isn't much point delving into the actors' efforts, because they were pretty much wooden and disinterested across the board. No one bought a ticket to this film to be wowed by the thespian skills of completely forgettable actor No. 42, but to see vampires and werewolves kicking the shit out of each other for an hour and a half.
And that's exactly what they got.
