This original and gore-soaked vampires film begins in 1202 a.d., eight centuries ago. Unknown to humanity, a blood feud raged between a ruling class of vampires and rebellious legion of werewolves known as Lycans. Legend tells that the war began with two brothers, the immortal sons of Alexander Corvinus(Derek Jacobi). Marcus(Tony Curran) bitten by bat became the blood leader of the vampires. William(Brian Steele) , bitten by wolf became the first and most powerful Lycan. For six centuries Selene(Kate Beckinsale) was a loyal soldier of the vampire clan, but she was betrayed. The war was not as it had seemed. In one night, the lies that had united the kind vampire had been exposed. Kraven, the second-in-command had formed a secret alliance with Lucian, ruler of the werewolf clan to overthrow Viktor(Bill Nighy),vampires leader . But Kraven's lust for power and domination had failed. But Viktor was not the savior they had been led to believe. He has betrayed them all. Soon the hunt would be on for his killer. Selene has but one ally left : Michael(Scott Speedman),the human descendant of Corvinus. Neither vampire nor Lycan, but a hybrid. It's only a matter of time before they're found. Their only hope now is to awaken to Markus , the last remaining Elder and expose the truth, before Kraven tries to murder him while he's still in hibernation. Kraven knows he's match for him awake. Meanwhile, Selene and Michael are going to Tanis's(Steven Mackintosh) fortress for getting information. As the war between vampires and werewolves get more personal and deadly , they decide to launch a full-scale attack on the hideout in order to extinguish the race.

This exciting movie displays unstopped action, thrills ride, spectacular fighting, graphic violence, brief nudism with mild sex scene and is pretty entertaining. Packs large amount of guts and gore , there's a huge body count, this one actually knocks off an immense amount, several vampires and werewolves are staked bloodily in the chest, even more impaled with large claws. There's really savage decapitation, plenty of bodies ripped in scraps and half, including some of the most tears ever, that spill lots of blood and numerous get shot up with bullets. Most of vampires, Lycans and humans victims are relegated to being bitten in the throat and neck. Magnificent special and visual effects as well as excellent make-up department. Bone-chilling and atmospheric musical score by Marco Beltrani and colorful and dark cinematography by Simon Duggan . Spectacular production design by Patrick Tatopoulos. He's author of set design and production design of known blockbusters, such as 10.000 BC, Indepencence day, I robot, Resident evil, Pith black among them. The motion picture is well directed by Len Wiseman, Kate Beckinsale's husband . He's also the screenwriter along with Danny McBride and Kevin Grevioux. All participate in the following, a prequel in pre-production, titled 'Rise of the Lycans' directed by Patrick Tatopoulos and with similar actors. Recommended to those who amuse those kind of vampires-werewolves films or those enjoy in general.

The first Underworld film was OK thanks largely to a decent plot and Kate Beckinsale looking hot in a all in one leather outfit which seems to have kick-started a genre of horror staples such as vampires, werewolves, zombies and Frankenstein as superheroes and super villains.

The sequel manages to entice Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy briefly and adds Derek Jacobi. I can see the casting agent on this one. Forget the Royal Shakespeare Company guys you need to follow in the footsteps of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and make horror films.

In this sequel vampires and werewolves battle for supremacy among the undead. Sultry Death Dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and hybrid Lycan Michael (Scott Speedman) try to untangle the secrets of their past and bloodlines. Jacobi is the father of two sons one who became the original vampire the other who became the original werewolf. The vampire Marcus (Tony Curran) plans to unleash a new force as he hunts down his brother entombed many centuries ago.

The plot is confusing and convoluted. The film conveniently gives flashbacks to the original film, useful as I can hardly remember much about it. We have plenty of fight action sequences set in a blue neon tinged nighttime but its badly choreographed with cheapo CGI.

The film suffers from horrid plotting and poorly drawn character arcs. A father who could had saved the world from a lot of bother if he forcefully dealt with his deviant sons. Yet one his offspring is happy to see off his dad.

This is a letdown from the original film.

I quite enjoyed the first UNDERWORLD movie, so when I saw that this sequel had a stronger rating, I was all for it, hoping for a decent action flick a la BLADE II. On the face of it, UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION offers exactly that, a tense thrill ride with plenty of action and heroics throughout. Oddly enough it fails from becoming a classic because it's got simply too much action, and action that's all pretty similar at that. Watching people fight with CGI monsters and heroes getting wounded but always coming back to life gets a bit stale after a while. I was also annoyed with Wiseman's colour palette; here it's all the same bluey-grey tones as we saw in DIE HARD 4.0, and it seems to be the only style of filming that the director uses. Why not branch out for some variety once in a while?

Still, on the face of it, I love action and monster bloodshed, and this film delivers that in spades. There's a cool new monster on the scene, a huge and powerful flying vampire guy, who is well animated and frightening, and a briefly-seen "king" werewolf, huge and white. The CGI werewolf transformations are well done and have a nice stop-motion look to them that recall the old Universal classics amongst others. There are some decent set-pieces, including a truck chase and a cavernous climax, but it's all a little too silly and repetitive for my liking. Watching Kate Beckinsale pull ammo from behind her back where there clearly was none a moment before is just cheating the audience, and seeing her take down armed policemen in a forest, using her martial arts skills, is a little too been-there-done-that. Wiseman just wants everything to look cool without question, and the result is frequent lapses in logic and more plot holes than I could count.

One of the silliest things about the film is the ludicrous back story. It was bad in the first film and even more demented here, with this guy doing something to that guy, that guy's family getting offended and doing something back, two different hybrid folks, blah blah blah. Who cares, really? There's no sense of even the family history that I saw in BLADE II; it just seems preposterous and half-hearted. The acting is also something of a detraction. Principal actors like Beckinsale and Speedman are sleepwalking through this, and I was annoyed when Bill Nighy turned up despite being killed in the first film (he's in a flashback here). Dressed in armour nicked from LORD OF THE RINGS, Nighy hams so bad I nearly turned the film off there and then, definitely the worst he's done. 'Classical' actor Derek Jacobi turns up to grab a pay cheque, and Beckinsale strips off for a silly sex scene which hints but shows nothing. What's the point, really?

I have to admit that the special effects throughout are good, even if the situations are ludicrous. The film wins marks for offing one of the bad guys with helicopter blades (always a pleasure to watch and executed perfectly here) but uses the same kind of science-defying mistake we saw in Van Damme's SUDDEN DEATH, when a helicopter drops vertically and somehow its blades don't stop spinning, even after it's crashed. Good gore, bad plot; for what it's worth, I enjoyed this flick, but it's not one I would want to watch again.