Underworld and its sequel, Underworld: Evolution, are difficult movies for me to come to grips with. There are elements to each that draw me in, but also many other facets, especially in the second, that turn me out again, leaving me either fuming or perplexed by what went wrong.
These are movies where vampires fight werewolves in a "secret war," whatever that means, for hundreds or thousands of years. They feature UV-ray and silver-infused bullets, ridiculous bouts of stupid gunplay, terribly ham-fisted romance, and wildly out-of-place gothic architecture. To be clear: these are very bad movies.
But the first one, strange as it is, worked for me. Some background: when I was young, about 13 years of age, I desired very strongly to play some sort of dice-based role-playing-game with my friends. I begged my mom to let me buy Dungeons & Dragons, but she refused, as she had heard on the news at some point that it might be connected to drugs, satanism, or other nefarious goings-on. But she had heard nothing about Vampire: the Masquerade, so I was able to pick it up and start playing it easily enough.
Big mistake, mom.
V:tM was written from, and aimed at, an infinitely more mature, adult point of view. At its best, it communicated themes of isolation, despair, inevitability, degeneration, and the utter monstrousness lurking within the human heart. At its worst, it reveled in gore, sex, depravity, and mean-spiritedness as some kind of gloriously profane expression of individual freedom. At all times, it challenged my developing mind to find good in a world gone horribly, horribly wrong. I played the game with my friends, and we all enjoyed it, but I was often frustrated with their inability to grasp the deeper meanings behind the stories we experienced together. The anguish, bitterness, and heartbreak that ran through the tales we told were regularly lost on them. They mostly thought it was awesome that they got to drink blood, live forever, and indulge in superpowered hijinx. Sometimes we connected with the ideas that really grabbed me, but mostly, they just slaughtered innocents for fun while I tried to figure out what I was failing to explain to them.
It was serious to me. Once, I went to the Wizards of the Coast store in the Exton Square Mall to buy a Vampire book, the Guide to the Camarilla. I searched the shelves and finally found it, cradling its dark green marble-patterned cover in my small hands. I carried it to the seventeen-year-old cashiers. They took one look and laughed at me. I didn't know what was funny, and I asked them. They smirked and told me that they knew why I was buying that book -- I wanted to look at the dirty pictures.
I was furious, but not embarrassed. I hadn't even known the book contained such pictures (though I should have -- all the other books did). I was honestly buying it to gain a greater insight into the plights of the undead, that I could provide a more interesting experience to my friends playing the game, and better come to grips with the challenging ideas presented by the setting. I was so angry that these morons would suggest I'd have any other than the purest, noblest, most honest intention than to explore the darker side of my own psyche. As if sex could hold a candle to the higher mysteries, the great pain, the awesome trauma of living when you know you should be dead. They might think it, but they should never have said it, and I was insulted enough to refuse to buy the book. I found a way to order it online, which was a difficult prospect in those early days, but infinitely preferable to their ignorant accusations.
In time, my friends lost interest in the game, but I never did, though I couldn't ever again find someone who was really willing to dig into the meaty psychological torture of playing it. I could read some novels relating to those themes, and watch a few movies, and I mostly found meaning in what I could, and moved on with my life, but never fully.
A friend, knowing my predilections, had recommended Underworld to me for several years, seemingly shocked that I had never watched it. So, a few weeks ago, I finally did. Let me reiterate: this is a bad movie. The writing, acting, plotting, cinematography, set design, costume design, and casting are all bottom-tier. I don't understand how it was ever made. It was painful to watch, and I laughed at it more than I was moved by it, however hard it tried.
And yet....something in the movie touched me. Buried deep within its cheesy action scenes and overwrought love story, there were some clumsy traces of that darkness which had motivated me so long ago. Somebody who made this movie understood, and tried to communicate (however poorly) those ideas that an immortal must grapple with and overcome. I sensed a kinship, and it drew me in. By the end of its running time, I was hanging on every word, even while I recognized the movie was terrible. I was involved. I wanted more. In that sense, for an audience like me, the movie was a success.
If I had been at a different point in my life, I may not have been so susceptible. But it hit me at the right time, and I responded. In the end, I shouldn't have been so surprised. It was no credit to the writers that they'd managed to connect with the legacy of the stories I had loved -- it turns out they probably stole one of them (albeit one I'd never read) to use as the basis for their movie. But they had done a closer job of it than anybody else, and even if it was a crime, it was a crime that served me well.
I waited a week, and then I could wait no longer, and I moved on to Underworld: Evolution.
It was a disaster. The spark was gone. I had been warned, of course, that it was awful, but people had said the same about the first movie, which had earned my love. The second, though, seemed to happily reject all of the themes that had pulled me in the first time. Instead of claustrophobic cities, there was a wide forest. Instead of ancient rivalries acted out through centuries of careful political maneuvering, there was a monster chasing the heroes from scene to scene, smashing things on the way. Delicacy and nuance were discarded in favor of brute force. There was a pervading sense of hope for the future. I lost interest.
How could this happen? How could the same people have made such wildly different movies? Strangely enough, I think for someone without my context, the second movie would be slightly more enjoyable. The action scenes were more intense, and there was less acting all around (a very good thing). But it had none of what I had loved. Whatever beauty had been in its misery was gone, and I was left with nothing but a memory to sustain me.
There is a third Underworld movie, but I doubt I can bring myself to watch it. The examination of immortal suffering which once held such fascination has atrophied from neglect, and the world seems to have moved on as well. There was a time for what moved me, but I was the wrong age to be a part of its heyday, and all that's left for me is to let it go and tend another garden, if I can find one that means even half as much.
UNDERWORLD: B-
UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION: D
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