VD
Vincenzo de Divitiis
•The age-old war between the Vampires and Lycans has reached a crucial and perhaps definitive point for the fate of the two races, with the fierce werewolves, who in the meantime have evolved and even managed to build themselves new extremely powerful weapons of the latest technology, ready to launch a great attack against the great and now declining eastern household of the vampires. In the midst of this great dispute is Selene, the ruthless vampire warrior who is pursued by both factions: on one side, the vampires want to avenge the murder of one of their great elders by the woman herself; on the other hand, the lycans want her daughter Eve, whose blood could represent the instrument to end this millennial battle, turning it to their advantage. The formidable Marius and his army of werewolves, however, are not the only danger for the eastern household within which there are different souls, including the nymphomaniac and wicked Semira, willing to do anything to conquer power, even at the cost of betraying their own lineage.
In 2003, "Underworld" was released in theaters, the first chapter of a very fascinating saga thanks to its mix of action horror that told a hypothetical war between vampires and werewolves within dark and, at times, gothic settings. A film, therefore, that managed to please genre enthusiasts precisely because it brought together the two most suggestive types of monsters in horror tradition and, above all, managed to insert them into a well-constructed story, far from typical schemes and therefore quite original.
With the passage of years, however, "Underworld" has experienced the fate reserved for almost all sagas and after the first two appreciable episodes, directed by the series' father Len Wiseman, the subsequent episodes have shown a concerning flattening both from the narrative and visual point of view. Not even the fifth episode, titled "Underworld: Blood Wars," escapes this trend, which sees Anna Foerster at the helm, who, after a long experience with television series, wets her debut in feature film direction with a poorly executed, impalpable film and by far the worst of the series in all respects.
If "Underworld – Rise of the Lycans" had the merit of inserting an action vein that patched up the numerous flaws in the story, this fifth episode does not continue on the path paved by its predecessor and, on the contrary, intends to return to the origins and focus again on the dynamics between the protagonists and the power games.
The big problem, however, is that Foerster tells things already widely said in the previous films and what comes out of it is a plot that is simply boring, verbose, full of redundancies, and very predictable like all power games that are intuitive from the beginning. The characters presented, then, are characterized in a superficial manner and seem inserted only to stretch the broth and move forward a now declining carriage, just like the household of the vampires: an example is the figure of Varga whose role shifts from Semira's toy-boy to a very active warrior in the final battle, but never without a clear and narrative-functional logic.
Things get worse still regarding the purely spectacular part with battles and action scenes reduced to a minimum and the look of the monsters, particularly that of the lycans, which has now lost all its frightening and unsettling charm of the early days.
In short, "Underworld: Blood Wars" seems completely out of context and seems to have lost all the elements that had guaranteed the success of a saga whose only salvation is perhaps represented by the transition from film to TV series, given the complexity of the plot that has been created.
In the cast, we find Kate Beckinsale, an even sexier icon with her latex suit, Theo James, Tobias Menzies, in the role of the ruthless lycan warrior Marius, and the captivating Lara Pulver who plays the nymphomaniac and ruthless Semira.
"Underworld: Blood Wars," in conclusion, is the worst chapter and the worst thing is that the ending leaves open the possibility for another sequel.
