Over Under

I saw my first new movie of the year this afternoon -- Underworld: Awakening. It probably wouldn't have been my first choice, but I was game enough to try to check my brain at the door and roll with it. I hadn't seen any of the Underworld movies since the first one, but I figured I probably wasn't going to be too out of the loop, story-wise.

Unfortunately, I was more right on that count than I'd even imagined. Underworld is stuffed to bursting with many things, but story isn't among them. What is there is a simplistic scaffolding built to hold a procession of action pieces.

Take any one action scene in the movie on its own, individually, and it's not half bad. The problem is watching them all back to back. The amplifier is cranked to 11 from the very beginning, and stays there for the entire film. There's really no ebb and flow to the movie. Every scene is the most spine-breaking, blood-letting, eardrum-rupturing set piece the writers and directors could conceive. Everything is outrageous, and so before long, it feels like nothing is outrageous. It's all just over the top.

There's some good, pulse-pounding music, and a fun (but too brief) appearance by Charles Dance, who last made a splash as Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones. Plus of course, if it floats your boat, Kate Beckinsale looking great in skin-tight leather-vinyl -- amazing for someone approaching 40 years old, actually.

But ultimately, I need just a bit less "dumb" in my "big dumb action move." I give Underworld: Awakening a D+.