Indecent -quel

So you don't think I've completely turned into a gushing fanboy without the ability to discern good from drek, I'll mention that I also recently rented the Underworld Prequel, and found it to be painfully boring.

I liked the first Underworld. It had some plot holes, but it was fun and edgy. It was a triumph of style over substance, even if it was all stolen from Nancy Collins and White Wolf.

The sequel, Underworld Evolution, wasn't as good, and magnified the issues with the already muddied timeline and metaphysics of the original film. But it was still fun, even if it didn't make any sense.

The prequel, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans was was gratuitous, and not in the good way. Gratuitous in the sense of "not called for by the circumstances." There was no point to making this film. No story worth telling. Just a lame excuse to grab a few bucks. About the only thing good I can say about Rise of the Lycans is that it had no Midichlorians. Honestly, though, the Phantom Menace was more dramatic, and at least presented us with a few surprises.

Rise of the Lycans had nothing we haven't already seen in the previous movies. They just reshot the flashbacks from the first two films, then expanded them with an hour and ten minutes of tensionless drivel, and one mildly amusing sex scene. You already knew the story, and the characters, and but unlike the new Star Trek film, you didn't even get to see a new angle on them. There was no "So that's how Vader turned evil", because no character in the Underworld setting has a development arc. Viktor's always been a jerk who manipulates his daughter-figures. The forbidden romance had been going on off-camera for some unspecified time before the narrative starts, and seems contrived and artificial. We know who (and how) it ends badly for, and who survives. There's no drama, no tension, no energy, no excitement. As I said, boring. So boring the damn blue filter ceased being artsy and turned into self-parody.

The only surprise in the entire film is in the last five minutes when they bizarrely show us that the Werewolves killed all but two Vampires, both of whom flee to the new world. Considering that Werewolves propagate faster than Vampires, and that there's literally hundreds of werewolves alive when all but 2 vamps get wiped out, it seems unlikely that they'd be able to reverse this situation in time for the original movie. I'm sure that's set up for a fourth film that bridges the gap, but why the heck would I want to give these hacks any more of my time or money?