Marthian80 I'm not a big fan of the Underworld movie franchise but I enjoyed the first two installments and after the prequel setting of the below-average third movie, I was interested what would become of the Selene and Michael story. Turned out I haven't missed much.This movie starts with a brief re-cap of what happened in the first two movies. After that it is explained that the vampires and lycans are discovered by the rest of mankind, who want to wipe both species out. Selene fights hard against the humans, searching for Michael which she finds in the harbor. Unfortunately, a grenade hits the both of them just after they find each other and all goes black for Selene. She wakes up a long time later from cryogenic sleep in a laboratory, having no idea what has happened to Michael or the other vampires. Selene now has to find out where the remaining vampires are, if the lycans are still a threat and how she mysteriously woke up from her sleep.. While the story is 'okay-ish', this is a very weak and sometimes laughably bad movie. Okay, I know these movies are not supposed to be taken to seriously but the characters are so weak, the CGI so horrible and the action so over the top that it's just bad. The only character with more then two lines of background is Selene and only if you watched the previous installments. Nothing new is added to her character, no development at all. And I'm supposed to believe that she cannot be damaged at all? She gets elevators dropped on top of her, cars thrown against her but nothing can hurt her, or her outfit. She also can bring people back from the dead by sticking her hand inside them and grabbing their heart..? WTF? The other characters are just there to be killed off or given a few lines to help the plot along. You are supposed to care about some characters but because they are just cardboard cutouts, you just laugh at the horrible bad effects when they get killed or kill lycans. There is a car chase scene with lycans pursuing the heroes but it looked so bad that I was just laughing. I have seen video game cut scenes from the 90's with better effects. So yeah, unless your a big fan of the franchise best leave this movie in the garbage bin. Stick to the first two movies and write your own ending for the franchise, it will be better then this pile of manure.

Thomas Drufke Upping the scale doesn't always mean a better film. 'Awakening' finds Underworld at its bloodiest and perhaps most action packed, but there's once again little under the surface of a vampire-action flick.At this point in the franchise, you pretty much know what you're going to get. Selene leads the war against anyone who opposes their kind. This time, however, it's humans who are on the opposite end of the stick. This premise felt a lot like when the old Planet of the Apes franchise ran out of ideas so they made a time jump and brought the humans in as the antagonists. In fact, it touches on a lot of the same social issues that 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' did, experimentation on creatures for one. The problem is, it's only touched upon. Just like the new relationship Selene has with a young girl named Eve isn't totally the focus either.I mean, I guess we can give 'Awakening' a little credit for not continuing the bland romance between Michael & Selene, and giving her someone new to care about. But there's a way to write characters into the story without overwhelming each scene with blood and guts. Heck, it's also pretty hard to root for Selene considering she slaughters every human in sight. This film absolutely doubles down on the series' heavy genre aspects, instead of trying to usher in a broader audience.Theo James & Charles Dance are brought in to essentially replace roles taken by Bill Nighy and Scott Speedman. Both actors give more grounded turns than the others did, but even they can't turn awful dialogue into something worth caring about. I'm not so sure Daniel Day-Lewis could even do it. Although the dialogue is still horrendous, the characters are still shallow, and the plot continues to get more ridiculously contrived, these films can be entertaining. The action is better choreographed than any of the other films and at least the run-time is short, right?+Action is amped up+Performances are more grounded-More blood & guts doesn't always mean the quality rises-Characters are still hollow5.3/10

adonis98-743-186503 When human forces discover the existence of the Vampire and Lycan clans, a war to eradicate both species commences. The vampire warrior Selene leads the battle against humankind. With Blood Wars coming out on December 1st i decided to wrap up my reviews for the Underworld Franchise once and for all with Underworld: Awakening a film that i remembered very different because Underworld 4 is actually pretty good and Kate Beckinsale still rocks as Selene she even went on a rampage and killed humans on this one, there's even a scene where she visits the building where her daughter is in and they shoot her and she is just a boss. But the biggest surprise from this film was actually India Eisley as Eve her transformation was terrific and i loved that part where she fought against Stephen Rea who plays Dr. Jacob Lane who also had another great transformation as for the big werewolf i think he was alright he isn't the worst bad guy of this Franchise but he isn't the best one either the cgi was a bit off at times but for the most part there were some practical effects also which saves the film more. Sandrine Holt has officially been murdered by a Terminator, a Werewolf and Zombies. To wrap this up if you know what you're getting into you won't be disappointed and this is definitely a much better Franchise than Resident Evil in my opinion.

alex-csongi I liked the previous movie in the franchise because they focused on the war between the Vampires and the Werewolves / Lycans and with every new entry in the series they uncovered new pieces of the past and at the same time they moved forward in the storyline.This time the movie goes in a completely different direction and tells us that humans found out the Vampires and Lycans exist and they seek to kill all mutants. This could have been a good direction if they would have chosen to use this as a tool to show any progress in the story and not as the story of the movie as a whole. The story is very generic, Selene escapes from a place she was held in, kills Lycans , end of movie. That's it, the only thing the movies does it's that it hints us what's going to happen in the sequel. I see this as a missed opportunity, they could have showed us the Vampires uniting with the Lycans against humans or show us Vampires and Lycans fighting for their rights or anything else but instead, they have shown use how Selene kills MORE Lycans.