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Trailer Critic: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans


I'm fairly certain Rhona Mitra isn't reenacting the Knighting of Elton John in this scene... 

 

 

Trailer Citique: OK. Did we really need to re-use the Max Payne trailer song? (Marilyn Manson's If I Was Your Vampire...) I know the audience you're looking for has visual association issues, but we just got buried under this song two weeks ago when 20th Century Fox advertised the hell out of Payne. The only problem that comes springing to mind is that Max Payne's trailer actually looked kind of kick-ass, thus making this new trailer for Underworld 3 look fairly weak by comparison. Probably not the effect the advertising agency was hoping for.

I am a mildly warm Underworld fan. I liked the original film though it had it's really awful moments. I thought Shane Brolly's Kraven was the worst display of acting skills I've seen in an action/horror flick since Wesley Snipes in all three Blade movies. In the end I ended up liking Underworld: Evolution alot more. I really dug Marcus as a villain, and the final fight between him and Selene was smoking hot. What puzzles me about this new film is that it's a prequel to a film that already gave us a pretty good prehistory to the Lycan/Vampire wars. Correct me if I'm wrong but we sort of know Lucien's, (the always outstanding Michael Sheen) backstory, did we really need an entire movie made out of it?

My feeling is that the film producers figured out, probably a little bit late in the game, that they killed off the best actor, and arguably best character, in the first film when Kate Beckinsale sliced Bill Nighy's  face into halves at the end of the original Underworld. The only way to bring Nighy back is to do a prequel. OK. Whatever. I'm a Nighy fanatic, I'll still see it. But I'd feel much better about my future ticket purchase if this trailer didn't look so.... Bland? Maybe even blah? Rise of the Lycans looks fairly standard issue, we're not seeing much of anything new here. And the plague of computer generated werewolves might have bothered me alot more if the werewolves in costume didn't look so 1955...

Does anyone else think that Rhona Mitra, though extremely fracking hot 99% of the time, sort of looks like a dude when she's in vamp drag? Check out this photo:

She kind of reminds me of King Theoden's dying son Theodred in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers...

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Movie Examiner

Jason's a strung-out film junkie and an unconditional Star Trek fan. He prefers the word columnist to critic and offers a proudly unrefined...

Comments

  • Dan 3 years ago
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    I liked the original much better than Underworld: Evolution. While it was obviously trying to draw in the Matrix crowd, it was mildly entertaining. I thought the only redeeming value of the second one was Kate Beckinsale looking smoking hot.

    I agree with you about Rise of the Lycans. There's nothing in that trailer that would get me excited to see it.

  • Roestel 3 years ago
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    I liked the original, in fact I probably like the Underworld series much more than I let on in the piece... But I'm not really digging the new trailer. There had to be another direction the Underworld bosses could have taken this series. Maybe there's a good reason why Beckinsale is not in the next flick.

  • kaduzy 3 years ago
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    The plot of the second one didn't make any sense whatsoever, but the action scenes and special effects were awesome. I loved the first one and I was hoping that the inevitable third one would feature a little baby lycan/vampire/immortal superhuman and that someone Kate Beckinsale could be bribed with large sums of money to come back to the fold. That may only happen if this third one is a success, so vote with your dollars! I'll only have time to see it once, so I'm counting on the rest of you to help me out here . . .

  • kaduzy 3 years ago
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    That should say "someHOW Kate can be bribed . . ."

    Oh and I like the trailer. Yeah it's not really that interesting on a purely trailer-centric level, but I think that's because we're all bringing our knowledge of the series to the table. I'm sure when the first "Titanic" trailers came out, people were like, "Gee, I know the boat sinks and almost everyone dies . . . why should I line up for this?" We all know how that story ended, a billion dollars later.

    This movie obviously will not make a billion dollars. It'll be lucky to scare up $50 million. Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen are AWESOME (and must be investing in some serious beachfront realty thanks to this series) but they're not exactly top box office draws.

    Since we all know how this story ends, there is only so much this trailer could have done to get us wet for the new movie. It's not a work of art, but it did its job the best it could.

  • Roestel 3 years ago
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    I forgot you were a fan of these movies as well Duzy. I'll be right there opening night, but I didn't find the new trailer as encouraging.

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