Underworld: Awakening

I guess it would be fair to say I found the first 2 Underworld films detestable. They struck me as joyless, plodding affairs with a suffocatingly monochromatic aesthetic. Mechanical, calculating films more intent on franchise building than entertaining. I caught the third film on home video and recall not being infuriated by it, but if any specific laudable aspect exists, it seems to have escaped me. When I first saw the trailer for what I then referred to as Underworld: Whatevering, I distinctly remember reminding myself not to be fooled by the shiny baubles it promised for the previous three had yielded only gun flint blue lumps of cinematic coal. Today however, I found myself in a crummy mood with free time and the requisite spare 11$, so, big surprise, I took in an IMAX 3-D presentation of the latest Lycan escapade.

Whether by dint of lowered expectations or a strong desire to indulge in mindless escapism is irrelevant, the bottom line is I can't remember the last time I had this much damn fun sitting in a theater by myself in the middle of the afternoon. With a king sized soda and a bag of my favorite candy by my side, I guffawed with moronic glee at the incomprehensible bombast. The plot is a serviceable stew of worn out tropes and exhausted contrivances, but who cares? I sat down looking to be transported out of my grey life into a blue/grey life. With machine guns! And 20 foot tall CGI werewolves! A mincing Charles Dance and a disinterested Stephen Rea! This movie has it all! Not really, but it had exactly everything I needed it to have at the exact moment I saw it.

Most of all though, this movie is LOUD. I mean impossibly loud. So overpoweringly loud, the aural experience teeters on the precipice betwixt excruciating and ecstasy. Oh, the machine guns, the explosions, the roaring CGI werewolves! Cars thrown about like matchsticks and sonically careening about the theater, bludgeoning me into submission and pinning me to the back of my seat. When I see a brain dead pile of bologna like this, I need the sound design to seemingly be attempting to deafen me. When you lack in the story, acting and script departments this profoundly, a good audio visual presentation goes a long way toward compensating for the deficit.

Speaking of the visuals, the 3-D was fully realized without being intrusive as so many current attempts are. I'm assuming this was shot in the format as opposed to the dreaded post conversion, cause this thing looked fantastic and never dark, an astonishing fact when one considers the murky palette this film swims in. I really enjoyed the rustic sets of the coven's hideout and the monolithic, rushing damn that concealed it. There's some nice high definition photography going on here with the cinematography as exceedingly accomplished as the direction is admirably stylish. Pedestrian in regard to story, yet experimental and exacting in approach to look. This is that rare instance of style over substance where the inequality should be not only begrudgingly accepted, but enthusiastically applauded.

I'm certain, like the latest Resident Evil, it won't hold up at home on bluray. Movies like this need to be seen in the biggest theater you can find with sound that literally shakes your seat and occasions onset tinnitus. When you watch this, your eyes glaze and you breathe through your mouth, snorting smug, callous approval at the endless parade of decapitations and guttings. The vapors of this gloriously idiotic experience are already wafting into distant, hazy memory. The impact is not built to last, but was monumentally enjoyable while it was happening to me. I won't be mulling over the thematic implications, but I'll be first in line for the next one.