"We were slaves once. The daylight guardians of the vampires. I was born into servitude. Yet I harbored them no ill will. Even took a vampire for my bride. It was forbidden, our union. Viktor feared a blending of the species. Feared it so much he killed her. His own daughter. Burnt alive for loving me. This is his war. Viktor's. And he spent the last 600 years exterminating my species." - Lucian, from the first film.
A word of caution. While I am rating the new Underworld: Rise of the Lycans at 2.5 stars, I want to make it clear that it is a VERY VERY high 2.5 stars. The only thing holding this movie back from being truly great is that fact the the suspense is held in check due to knowing that most of these characters will survive this ordeal. That being said.....
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is the back story to Underworld and Underworld: Evolution. It chronicles the titular rise of the werewolf species, Lycan, led by Lucian (Michael Sheen) from slaves to free....erm...wolves. Through a voiceover from Selene (Kate Beckinsale, appearing only in a cameo at the very end) we learn that the Lycans are simply a race of werewolves (Led by William, not seen in this film either), no longer able to take human form. They are essentially wild dogs that hunt a kill anything, vampire and human alike, for no reason. That all ends when Lucian is born. Lucian is the first hybrid Lycan, able to transform from human to werewolf and back again. After he is born, Viktor (Bill Nighy) decides to kill him, but has second thoughts and lets him live. He uses Lucian (who as he grows becomes a cunning warrior) to breed a race of hybrid lycans to defend the vampires while they sleep during the day.
We flash forward several years as Viktor's daughter, Sonja (Rhona Mitra) is saved by Lucian from a wild Lycan attack. While the hybrid lycans work as slaves within the castle walls, the original wild lycans continue to attack form the outside. Viktor thanks Lucian and wonders what it feels like for him to kill his own kind. Lucian responds that he doesn't really care and thay the lycans outside the castle are wild animals and nothing more. The enslaved lycans are kept in check by a collar of silver around their necks. Any attempt at transformation while the collar is on results in death. We also learn that removing the collar has it consequences as well.
Lucian is Viktor's "pet" lycan, working as a blacksmith in the castle. You see early on that he commands the respect of his fellow Lycans. Lucan pleads with them not to act like animals for the entertainment of the vampires, but to act like prideful men and women. Even though he appears obedient, Lucian longs for the day that his species can be free of the Vampire's control. Unknown to the vampires also, is that Lucian is having an affair with Sonja and has built a key to unlock his collar and escape with her. Viktor's assistant, Tannis (Steven MacKintosh), last seen sleeping around with a vampire threesome in "Underworld: Evolution" notices the two of the together (having kinky vampire/werewolf sex) but says nothing to Viktor of it, as he plans to use his knowledge to get a seat on the Vampire council.
Later, when Sonja rides out to escort some human nobles (coming to meet Viktor) and slaves (to be transformed into werewolves) back to the castle. Among these slaves is Raze (Kevin Grevioux) who we know eventually will become one of Lucian's head honchos. Sonja's group is attacked by dozens of wild lycans, who kill most of the vampires and several of the nobles and slaves. Lucian, sensing danger, manages to escape the castle and remove his collar, transforming into a werewolf. He saves the escort party and fends off the wild lycans, who back away when Lucian roars. His victory is cut short when Viktor arrives and shoots him with silver tipped arrows, transforming him back into human form. Barely commenting on the fact that Lucian selflessly saved his daughter, Viktor punishes Lucian with 30 lashes and public humiliation.
A bloody Lucian is led back to the dungeons where he befriends Raze in a wonderfully acted scene. Lucian asks Raze if he is scared of him. Raze responds that he is and Lucian tells him not to worry. "I won't bite....much." They two future friends share a laugh. Heh. Later, when Raze and the other slaves are forcibly turned into werewolves for slave labor, Lucian reaches his breaking point. In this years "THIS...IS...SPARTA" moment, Lucian declares (I'm sure you've heard it by now), "WE CAN BE SLAVES. OR WE CAN BE LYCANS!" He formulates a plan with Sonja and Tannis to escape. Sonja cuts a deal that if the plan works, that she will give up her seat on the Vampire council and give it to Tannis as thanks for his help. She plans to leave in three days to join Lucian. How she thinks this will go unnoticed by Viktor is beyond me.
The major problem with the plan is escaping the castle. At first I thought the plan was to wait until sunrise, but then I realized that the castle was inside a mountain, blanketed in perpetual night. The only way into the sunlight is to actually escape the castle walls. This leads to a thrilling escape sequence as the Lycans rush through small corridors as the vampire guards launch massive spears, impaling several lycans at once and getting one guy (in a great SFX shot) through the face. The crowd cheered loudly at this. Only a handful of Lycans manage to escape with Lucian to the outisde. Viktor, in an act of sheer defiance, stands on the sunlight for several seconds (his skin begins burning away), glaring at Lucian before returning to the castle. His favorite has betrayed him.
Lucian and Raze being to recruit peasants and workers from the outlying areas to join them in the fight against Viktor, offering them the gift of wereowolf immortality only should they want it. Lucian leaves Raze in charge of the recruiting effort and goes to meet Sonja, as planned. He doesn't find Sonja, but does find a den full of wild lycans. We do not see what happens here, but we can assume that Lucian somehow manages to cut a deal with them. Upon returning to the camp, Lucian learns that Viktor has arrested Sonja (told you he'd find out) and is holding her in the castle. Lucian orders his men to continue recruiting as he will enter the castle alone and rescue her. He magaes to free her but they are pinned down by Viktor and the other vampires. Sonja battles her own father in a swordfight, while Lucian fends off the guards. Viktor appears to be ready to defeat Sonja when she tells him she is carrying Lucian's child (A true Vampire/Werewolf hybrid). Viktor is outraged. Lucian and Sonja are locked in a room together. Lucian is shot with silver tipped arrows, flogged and chained to the floor to watch Sonja be destroyed by the sun. Sheen does an amazing job here, in a redo of a scene from the original Underworld. The resulting nuclear explosion of anger is cross cut with Viktor silently weeping at Sonja's bedside. Everyone has been betrayed here.
It is at this moment that Lucian learns a crucial skill that we saw him use in the original movie. Through sheer force of will, he pushes the arrows out of his body and transforms. He attempts another escape and is again shot down, but this time the cavalry is en route. The Lycans, wild and hybrid storm the castle walls, in a scene filled with theater shaking ground rumbling and adrenaline. The Lycans easily scale the walls and attack the vampires. Raze removes the arrows from Lucian's body and joins the fight. Lucian zeroes in on Viktor and they battle it out. Lucian wins, but we know Viktor will survive because he is in the original movie as well. Raze tells Lucian it is over, but Lucian reminds him and us that this is a prequel. We then cut back to a clip from the first film, as Selene overlooks the city. We hear the lines spoken by Kraven to her regarding Viktor. The movie ends with one word: "LIES".
This is the problem with "Rise of the Lycans". We know these characters will survive. We know Lucian and Raze will go on to battle Kraven later and that a truce will be formed temporarily. We know Viktor will survive and create and eventually be killed by Selene 600 years later. That eliminates a lot of the wonder. What is nice is to see these moments, previously only hinted at in flashback, fully realized. It's an ambitious movie, only held back by that knowledge. As a prequel, it is one of the best I've seen recently. Sheen is very likable as Lucian and commands the screen. Amazing what some facial hair and sweat can do for a person's image. Sheen also has very expressive eyes which convey a wide range of emotions without a word.
Bill Nighy chews up scenery here as well as ever. He's developed a kind of tick in his voice carried over from playing Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean. He ends words on strange syllables which serve to make his characters quirky, silly and intense at the same time (i.e. "Do you fear death-a?") The thing is though, he LOOKS amazing as a vampire. Exactly what you would expect one to look like. Indeed the vampire design in UNderwold has always been on of my favorites. They way their eyes glow bright blue when angry (though Nighy's are always blue...because he's always angry) and they way the carry themselves is very cool. Mitra is beautiful and has a good presence on screen. She's softer and not as facially angular as Beckinsale, but she is wonderful on screen and gets what she can out of a character we know is doomed.
It's nice to see a lot of the characters tie-in here. We do see Kraven, but it's not announced "THIS IS KRAVEN" because before Kraven cut the deal with Lucian, he was basically nobody, just another fighter. So in this film he is shown as one of Viktor's guards and has no speaking part. In fact, I didn't even know it was him until I saw him in the credits and everything connected. Some things also had to be tweaked in the interest of storytelling. Sonja's death in the first film took place inside the council chamber and Lucian transformed and killed the council members. Here, it happens while they are alone allowing for a more powerful emotional response. We get to see them say goodbye to each other and get to fully take in the reactions of Lucian and Viktor before getting to the fight. It's a god choice on the part of the director and elevates the scene and Sheen and Nighy's characters to awesomeness.
The fight scenes are full of a lot of CGI werewolves which gives them a video game quality. A lot of the fights are shot in closeups and handheld "Saving Private Ryan" styles. I was glad that not all of the Lycans transformed to wolves. The combination of the CGI lycans and humans broke up the artifice of it all. A lot of blood spills, but it's not gory and the music (by Marco Beltrami) serves as a compliment to the action, bass heavy and pumping, but not overpowering.
So as I said in the beginning. I could possibly have rated this a three star film. If it had held but one suprise, it would have made it there. It is however, as high a 2.5 film as can be. I enjoyed it intensely, was never bored, liked the characters, loved the action. It was true to the spirit of the Underworld series, which if you've enjoyed so far, you will not be upset here. I'm giving it a high recommendation and now I being gearing up for Friday, February 13th, 2009, when Jason finally comes back to Camp Crystal Lake!
