Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Underworld: Blood Wars

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Underworld: Blood Wars



    Underworld: Blood Wars
    Released by: Sony Pictures
    Released on: April 24th, 2017.
    Director: Anna Foerster
    Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Charles Dance, Lara Pulver, Bradley James
    Year: 2017
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    It's hard to keep a series fresh five installments in, but you've got to give the powers that be at Sony credit for trying with the Underworld films. Unfortunately this fifth entry, Underworld: Blood Wars, crashes and burns.

    The story once again revolves around sexy vampire assassin Selene (Kate Beckinsale). This time around she's in trouble not only with the Lycan clan that wants her dead, but the Vampires as well. There are only two people she can trust - her old pal David (Theo James) and his dad Thomas (Charles Dance). However, one of the vampire leaders, Semira (Lara Pulver), offers her an olive branch - they'll forgive her for her past transgressions if she helps to train a new group of vampiric Death Dealers. Selene agrees, unware that Varga (Bradley James) has been tasked by Semira to kill the new recruits and Selene alike.

    Selene escapes, thanks to David, but the trainees do not. Now blamed for the slaughter, with nowhere to hide, they head north to meet up with the Nordic Coven and prepare for the inevitable war that will soon break out…

    While introducing the Nordic Coven is admittedly a mildly interesting twist, the rest of this movie feels very much like the other Underworld movies. It uses the same blue tinted hyperactive visual style, features the same type of costumes (not that anyone is going to complain about Kate Beckinsale in a leather catsuit!) and features the same sort of Matrix-inspired bullet time effects work that fans have now seen play out in five different installments (there's a sixth on the way so evidently someone out there must be into this stuff). Unfortunately, while that familiarity might appease the franchise's fan base, those looking for anything different or even interesting will be left wanting.

    The movie is slick, it is glossy and it has nice production values so long as you don't mind an overabundance of CGI. There are vampires and werewolves, so the movie has a fairly high 'monster' quotient, which is never a bad thing. The violence is incredibly stylish, Beckinsale is very watchable in her part and the movie goes at a good clip, rarely suffering from even slight pacing problems. But it's not enough. It's watchable enough and you won't hate yourself for watching it, but once it's all over and done with? Meh. It's forgettable. It's neither terrible nor remarkable, it simply is. It's the very definition of mainstream Pablum, comfort food for the ADD crowd.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Underworld: Blood Wars arrives on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.39.1 widescreen on a 50GB disc. As you'd expect from a brand new transfer of a studio backed film shot on high end HD video, it looks immaculate. There is some very tiny macroblocking in a couple of spots but if you blink you'll probably miss it. Otherwise, this is a top notch effort that shows excellent detail and texture, fantastic color reproduction and really strong black levels.

    The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track on this disc is stellar. There's fantastic channel separation throughout the film, the levels are perfectly balanced and the track is crystal clear - just like you'd expect from a brand new major studio production. It's an aggressive and involving track that really brings the action scenes to life. Optional English SDH are offered as are subtitles in English and French. There's also a French language dub track presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio as well.

    Extra are made up primarily of a few short featurettes, starting with The Evolution Of Selene, an eight minute piece that basically just explains how the series' lead character has evolved over the course of the Underworld films. In the six minute long Old & New Blood we get quick snippets that offer up some insight into Thomas, David, Vidar and Lena while in The Evil Evolved we spend six minutes talking about Cassius, Semira, Varga, Alexia and Marius. None of these are that interesting - they explain to fans of the series what they already know about the characters that inhabit the films.

    More interesting is the twelve minute Building A Blood War featurette that talks about how the film ties into the first in the series before then going on to talk about the direction, the effects work, the costume design, the casting and more. It's not super in-depth but it's something. Rounding out the extras on the disc is the Underworld: Blood Wars Graphic Novel (basically a comic book presented in slideshow format with music from the movie's score playing underneath it) and trailers for a few other Sony properties available on home video. Animated menus and chapter selection are also included and inside the keepcase alongside the Blu-ray disc is an insert card for a digital HD version of the movie.

    The Final Word:

    Diehard fans of the series might appreciate this but otherwise, Underworld: Blood Wars is a pretty tepid, by the numbers sequel that brings very little of interest to the franchise. Having said that, if the disc is light on extras it does look and sound like a reference quality release - and hey, Kate Beckinsale in a leather cat suit.

    Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!




















    • Nabonga
      #1
      Nabonga
      Senior Member
      Nabonga commented
      Editing a comment
      I've seen almost every one of these films. I remember absolutely nothing about any of them.
    Posting comments is disabled.

Latest Articles

Collapse

  • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Severin Films
    Released on: April 30th, 2024.
    Director: Lee Frost
    Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
    Year: 1969
    Purchase From Amazon

    Hot Spur – Movie Review:

    Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
    ...
    03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
  • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Mondo Macabro
    Released on: April 9th, 2024.
    Director: Max Pecas
    Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
    Year: 1985
    Purchase From Amazon

    Death Squad – Movie Review:

    Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
    ...
    03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
  • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Quality X
    Released on: February 28th, 2024.
    Director: Chuck Vincent
    Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
    Year: 1982
    Purchase From Amazon

    Roommates – Movie Review:

    Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
  • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Blue Underground
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Jess Franco
    Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
    Year: 1970
    Purchase From Amazon

    Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

    Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
  • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Saul Bass
    Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
    Year: 1974
    Purchase From Amazon

    Phase IV – Movie Review:

    Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
  • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Radiance Films
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
    Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
    Year: 1969-1972
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

    Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
    ...
    03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
Working...
X