I thought it was important to keep tabs on the machinations of Underworld: Evolution. But I also thought it equally important not to swell the coffers of the lousy film-makers responsible. So I snuck in. Missing the first couple of minutes, which I believe gives Bill Nighy the right to have third billing in a film where he barely appears. Good on you Bill, you are best out of this sorry mess.
He is replaced, in the respectable actor stakes, by Derek Jacobi who is unclear what his role is. You don’t blame him, the script seems equally unclear. As far as I could work out he plays the father of all vampires and werewolves, and as such (like Scott Speedman from the original rubbish Underworld) is potentially more powerful than both. This power has been used through the centuries as some sort of cosmic dustman, explaining why we humans have never noticed the interminable war between the Lycans and the Vampyres.
Anyway none of this explains why Kate Beckinsale is wearing rubber.
Picking up where the previous rubbish left off, it is a non-stop breakneck chase. Though having killed all the werewolves and vampires in the previous film, they ran out of bad guys. So some new ones, with no real plot behind them turn up. Director and Mr Beckinsale happily realised that the “blue smurf” design of the hybrid creature was a bit rubbish, and thus relegates Speedman’s character to wimpy love extra for much of the film. Also he realised the apparent attraction of his wife and therefore gets in some nudy shots and does not mutate her too much when she gains “ultimate power”. She just puts in some blue contact lenses.
Ending in another one of those multi-part fights that go on forever, and the suggestion of yet another poorly made low budget sequel, there is not a moment in Underworld: Evolution where your heart does not sink at the poverty of imagination of everyone involved. And for that I say Bravo – I’m spending my next fiver on Grizzly Man.