Just in case viewers of forgotten what happened in previous instalments, or not watched them all, this film opens with a brief precis of what happened before. This explains how our protagonist, the vampire soldier Selene has had her daughter hidden somewhere even she doesn't know and how both vampires and lycans are determined to find her as they believe it will help them end the war between the two species.

Protagonist Selene is wanted by the lycans, who believe she is the key to finding her daughter and the vampires who what revenge for what she did in a previous film. As the war is going so badly for the vampires she is granted a pardon and invited to help train more vampire soldiers, known as Death Dealers, for the upcoming battle against the lycans who are led by Marius, a smarter than typical lycan. Unfortunately she is betrayed and only survives thanks to the actions of David, the son of a senior vampire... before the film is over they will have to fight both lycans and vampires in a number of battles.

Having enjoyed the first three films, but not seeing the fourth, I was glad of the short but effective recap at the start of the film. The story might not be the greatest but it served the purpose of justifying several really impressive fight scenes both between vampires and lycans and between rival vampires. Some of these were one on one or small scale, others were battles with numerous combatants. All of these scenes were pretty exciting and featured good CGI. Selene continues to be a fine protagonist and David provides good support for her; Kate Beckinsale and Theo James are solid in these roles. Vampire Semira and lycan Marius are decent antagonists played by Lara Pulver and Tobias Menzies. Overall a solid enough supernatural action movie; hardly a must see but a fun way to pass an hour and a half if you like the genre.

BLOOD WARS ranks alongside RISE OF THE LYCANS as the worst yet in the UNDERWORLD franchise. We're stuck in a perenially murky grey/blue world of digital filmmaking, where various vampires and werewolves strive for domination and kill off their rivals. A tired old plotline is bolstered by lots of boring fight scenes which may the key mistake of replacing human fighters with CGI stunt people, like Del Toro did in BLADE II back in the day; the end result is less engaging than even a video game. Kate Beckinsale walks through the thing without a single expression; she's either bored by the whole thing, or has had so much plastic surgery than she can no longer move any of her facial muscles. Genuine actors like Charles Dance and Tobias Menzies are utterly wasted. My advice? Pretend this doesn't exist.

Death dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is alone in the world. Michael is long gone. Their daughter Eve is hidden away even from Selene herself. Both Lycans and Vampires are after her. Vampire David (Theo James) comes to her aid against the Lycans and she saves his life. The Eastern Coven is losing against the Lycans and Semira (Lara Pulver) argues to reinstate Selene as leader of the new untrained Death Dealers.

The franchise first started going downhill with Michael being written off. There is a Romeo and Juliet aspect to the first movie that is missing from all the rest. It's a good thing to start with a previously segment to bring some of it back since I've forgotten most of the convoluted history. The franchise is running on fumes. It feels very repetitive. This is playing to an ever shrinking fan base and nobody else. People who haven't followed the movies have no reason to watch this.