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Finally saw the movie Underworld. I’m a little puzzled why there were so many people that thought the movie was based on my books. Other than the main female character being short and dark haired, and tough, there just didn’t seem that much in common.
First, let me say that this movie reminded me why I’ve almost completely stopped watching or reading other people’s vampires. It’s a busman’s holiday, and I don’t enjoy the ride. I spend the entire time complaining.
Complaint number one: The death-dealers, are the equivalent of special forces, or tactical teams with the police. I would be very surprised if anyone associated with this movie had ever studied anything about real tac teams, or real special forces. Nor, had they looked at why there are no fully automatic pistols, like regular pistols, not subbies with pistol grips. The most amount of ammo a pistol holds is thirteen, fourteen rounds. Trust me when I say that fourteen rounds at full automatic goes in the blink of an eye, and you’re out of ammo. Say you modify the clip to do twenty rounds, same dif, you just die a few seconds later. Hell, take a full clip in a real sub-machine gun, put the little sliding switch to full automatic, and pull the trigger. You will run out of ammo in a such a sort space of time. An unbelievable amount of ammo goes through the gun in a frighteningly short time. That is why real tac teams, or real special forces, are taught to use short controlled bursts. It saves ammo, and gives you some chance of knowing how much ammo you’ve used, which let’s you know how much ammo you have left. A very important thing in a fire fight.
The death-dealers in this movie were supposedly doing special forces work for centuries, I will credit them with more competency than this movie showed. The vampires, other than Celine, seemed totally out-classed, and don’t get me started on the scene where she has enough ammo to chop a hole in the floor to escape. If she has that much ammo to spare, then don’t run, kill their fuzzy little asses.
Complaint number two: The running fire fight in the subway. Yes, Celine, does mention later that it was unusual to have the werewolves start shooting infront of all the humans. But how the hell do either the fuzzies or the vamps keep hidden with this kind of shit going on. And may I just say that John Woo has not been a good influence on Hollywood fight scenes. Yes, they are pretty, but style over substance is just not my gig.
And what was with the cadre of vamps in the front room of the mansion? What did they do? What were they there for? Too look pretty? To what?
Complaint number three: Yeah, I believe that a master vampire would allow himself to be put into hibernation, and trust that when his turn came the other vamps would wake him up and let him rule. Sure I do. Machiavelli must be rolling in his grave.
So not happening.
Complaint number four: The final fight scene. If you haven’t seen the movie this is a spoiler alert. Celine uses a sword to cut the bad guy’s head in two. But he doesn’t know it for about a minute. She did to his head what the old Zorro movies used to do to candles. You know where the sword is so sharp, and the swordsman so good, that the candles look solid, and the other guy thinks our hero missed, but the touch of a sword blade, or a breath of wind makes the candle tips fall over. This may work with candles, don’t know, haven’t tried it, but it certainly doesn’t work with heads. I would have been fine with his head being split in two. I would have been fine with him living with the head split in two, he is an uber-master vampire, but flesh is flesh, and physics is physics. Your monsters should as far as possible work like real creatures of flesh and blood.
Complaint number Five: Due to many of the preceding, I at no time felt like any of the main characters were in jeopardy. The last moment of suspense for me was the car accident where Michael our hero saves our heroine. Yes, she saves him more times, true.
The usual complaints. How the hell do werewolves walk on walls and ceilings like flies or lizards? It takes very specialized stuff to walk on walls and ceilings. Yes, mice can do walls, but rarely ceilings, and if you’ve ever watched them do it, it’s not as easy as running along a floor, like most movie werewolves seem to be able to do in defiance of gravity and laws of mass and sturdiness of plaster and wall board. Even if you could come up with a biologically logical way for your werewolves to do the ceiling and wall thing, most walls and ceilings would not support the weight and damage of the claws. Just wouldn’t happen.
I am so tired of watching monster flicks where just because it’s vampires and werewolves, or whatever, that no one seems to care about biology, real mythology, real folklore, real history, real fighting tactics, real weaponry used in a realistic manner, and who decided that to be a vamp you have to have the long black leather, or leatherish coats? Have you ever tried to run in an ankle length leather trench coat? I have. Yes, I own one, as some of you have seen at events if it was cold enough. But one day, at our home, when the puppy , Pippin, was much younger, he got away. Pippin was headed for the street and a car. I started running, full-out, and found instantly that the heavy leather trench hindered me. You could follow me across the snow by the line of clothes I left behind. One of the first things I ditched was the leather trench coat. My hat is off to all the actors in this film that did their stunts wearing the damned things.
Yes, Jean-Claude and some of the other vamps like to look good. Jean-Claude is an incredible clothes horse. But I think he’s only worn an ankle length cloak like anything two or three times in the entire twelve book run of the series. There’s a reason for that. I try to do for the clothes, what I do for the weapons. I research it. Substance over style, people, not style over substance. I’m going to bed now. Jon is doing is own rant about the movie. Tomorrow is another day, and I’m playing with the fey, not vamps until this Merry book is done. Watching this movie did not invigorate me. It made me feel tired. Research. Research. Research. Damnit.