Underworld: Evolution brought the vampire-werewolf franchise to the next shlocky level

By ditching some of the original's trademarks, Underworld: Evolution prepared the series for the future

It’s appropriate that the vampire-werewolf blood-feud soap opera Underworld came out in 2003. That was the year of the Matrix sequels, and Underworld itself almost felt like a spinoff, specifically of that bit in The Matrix Reloaded where the Oracle alludes to rogue programs. (“Every time you’ve heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel… every story you’re ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens is the system assimilating some program that’s doing something they’re not supposed to be doing.”) Right on cue, a few months after the release of Reloaded, there was Underworld, set in an unnamed, Matrix-like city with lots of slow-motion, leather, and gun battles between vampires and werewolves, and shot with an even heavier filter. It was a surprise hit despite middling reviews, but it wasn’t until the even worse-reviewed sequel, Underworld: Evolution, that the five-movie series truly established itself.

On paper, and clearly to many critics 20 years ago, the second Underworld movie is a downgrade in several respects. Vampire “death-dealer” (werewolf assassin) Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and lycan-vampire hybrid Michael (Scott Speedman) are on the lam from both of their clans, which means bidding farewell to the first film’s distinctively rain-soaked city streets. The novelty of the lycan-versus-vampire backstory has worn off while the screenplay keeps going, expecting viewers to keep straight a bunch of annoyingly similar ancient-grudge-holding-elder characters. Michael’s personal novelty is gone, too; multiple characters take on hybridized versions of vampire and lycan abilities as Michael and Selene fight various other monsters across forests, highways, and a dilapidated castle. They’re nominally attempting to stop Marcus (Tony Curran) from creating a world-conquering race of hybrid monsters, but sometimes it feels like they’re studying for a lore exam.

And yet: Underworld: Evolution is also where the series settles into a trashier, monster-mashier January fixture — the winter-season equivalent of its fellow lady-led Screen Gems-released action-horror-fantasy franchise Resident Evil.

Getting out of Underworld City turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Yes, a big part of the original movie’s appeal was seeing monsters rendered in that silver-gun-metal-blue palette, doing Matrix-style fashion shooting in an urban environment. But Underworld never offers a particularly lived-in metropolis for its characters to truly inhabit. Some of its urban tableaux are visually striking in a splash-page sort of way, but the monster stuff never really feels like a secret world. For Underworld: Evolution, the creatures return to their natural habitats, and the film’s icy, limited color palette is actually a better fit for snow-capped forests and remote safehouses.

With its moodier, newly remote settings and vampire/lycan scuffling that’s somewhat less dependent on relentless gunfire, Underworld: Evolution plays like a later-period Universal Monsters movie that’s just arrived home from the leather club. The settings in particular recall Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which also features a snowy, crumbling castle — though that movie sadly does not include a fight set next to a still-running helicopter that’s been tipped 90 degrees and therefore threatens to dice anyone who gets too close. Evolution also features point-of-view shots where the camera follows the extended carpal spur of a winged Marcus as it impales his enemies.

This is cool in a horror-geek sense, but not as “cool” in the stylish-posturing sense that so informed the original Underworld. Returning director Len Wiseman seems to be making concessions to the horror fans. Evolution is more mercenary and gorier than the original, which in retrospect almost resembles a dry costume drama by comparison. (The sheer amount of exposition delivered throughout the series is daunting, but Underworld seems particularly fond of having aristocratic vampire characters explain each other’s history as they walk from stately room to stately room.) This first sequel also slashes the distended running time of the two-hour original by 15 minutes, paving the way for future installments to top out at a reasonable 90. All of these superficial changes feel like a unified attempt to prep the Underworld series for permanent relocation into January, which has a reputation as a dump season but has become a glorious month for a certain brand of unpretentious but fun movie junk food.

Underworld: Evolution was a part of that shift, even if, realistically speaking, these changes probably weren’t actually made based on a new release date. Most likely Wiseman was just trying to do justice to the original hit, and thought he needed to throw some extra noise, gore, and a change of scenery to do so. He wasn’t wrong; Evolution became one of the series’ biggest entries. It’s also highly rewatchable in the sense that the actual plotting jammed between awesome fight scenes is easy to forget. It’s like a new movie each time! (But it always has the helicopter blades.)

The second Underworld also kicked off 2006 as a year where plenty of other sequels would unexpectedly prove their series’ mettle, even if the movie itself would falter. The Fast and the Furious Tokyo-drifted further from the original movie’s characters, notched a series-low gross… and introduced director Justin Lin into the family. X-Men: The Last Stand overcame its hasty, slapdash conception as a trilogy-capper to prove these movies had a loyal, even growing, audience. Saw III killed off its signature character with no sign that the movies themselves would end. Sometimes a sequel isn’t about quality so much as durability — the ability to hold the audience’s interest even when it lacks what distinguished the original film. Underworld: Evolution really does feel evolved in that sense; it ditches some major first-movie trademarks and is all the more fun for it.