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Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

What’s the Story?

Reviewed by James Rocchi

Set long before the events in Underworld, UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS establishes the vampires vs. werewolves clash of the saga's plot. It depicts both the creation of the first intelligent werewolf, Lucian (Michael Sheen), born into bondage at the hands of the vampire ruler Viktor (Bill Nighy), and his secret passion for Viktor's daughter, Sonja (Rhona Mitra). When Viktor discovers their love, he's furious -- and, with the imprisoned Lucian leading a revolt of his fellow werewolf slaves, facing other problems as well. ...

Is It Any Good?

2

The first two Underworld films have been guilty pleasures for many moviegoers, and while Underworld: Rise of the Lycans features much of the same blood-drinking, neck-biting Romeo-and-Juliet Gothic romanticism of the first two films, it lacks the goofy pleasures of the first two movies' monsters-in-our-modern-world setting.

Sheen (who's far from the prestige of films like The Queen and Frost/Nixon here) makes for an adequate male lead -- haunted, heroic, hairy, and hunky -- while Mitra evokes some of the pouting hauteur that Kate Beckinsale brought to the earlier films. But Underworld: Rise of the Lycans never quite has the guts or glory to be much more than what it is: a bloody-but-bland cash-grab of a prequel made on the cheap in the name of a quick buck.

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