Underworld: Awakening (2012)

One of my all time favorites.

good back-story, and good acting

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Upping the scale doesn't always mean a better film. 'Awakening' finds Underworld at its bloodiest and perhaps most action packed, but there's once again little under the surface of a vampire-action flick.At this point in the franchise, you pretty much know what you're going to get. Selene leads the war against anyone who opposes their kind. This time, however, it's humans who are on the opposite end of the stick. This premise felt a lot like when the old Planet of the Apes franchise ran out of ideas so they made a time jump and brought the humans in as the antagonists. In fact, it touches on a lot of the same social issues that 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' did, experimentation on creatures for one. The problem is, it's only touched upon. Just like the new relationship Selene has with a young girl named Eve isn't totally the focus either.I mean, I guess we can give 'Awakening' a little credit for not continuing the bland romance between Michael & Selene, and giving her someone new to care about. But there's a way to write characters into the story without overwhelming each scene with blood and guts. Heck, it's also pretty hard to root for Selene considering she slaughters every human in sight. This film absolutely doubles down on the series' heavy genre aspects, instead of trying to usher in a broader audience.Theo James & Charles Dance are brought in to essentially replace roles taken by Bill Nighy and Scott Speedman. Both actors give more grounded turns than the others did, but even they can't turn awful dialogue into something worth caring about. I'm not so sure Daniel Day-Lewis could even do it. Although the dialogue is still horrendous, the characters are still shallow, and the plot continues to get more ridiculously contrived, these films can be entertaining. The action is better choreographed than any of the other films and at least the run-time is short, right?+Action is amped up+Performances are more grounded-More blood & guts doesn't always mean the quality rises-Characters are still hollow5.3/10

After taking an episode off Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is back. The Vampires and Lycans are in a new world in which their kind are being hunted and killed by humans in large numbers; they are being "purged". Even with a purge and the existence of Vampires and Lycans being public knowledge it hasn't stopped the feud between the species.Awakening is a refreshing Underworld in that it brings us back to present day and brings back the super-"death dealer", Selene. Her skills are on full display throughout with an array of weapons. She faces some incredible odds and expertly defies them time and again.I was impressed with the modernity of the movie and adding the wrinkle of discovery and subsequent "purging". This episode brought us into the present day with media, police and corporations. It was no longer a confined fight between Vampires and Lycans existing in a vacuum. Awakening was action-packed with a cool story.

On the plus side Underworld: Awakening is a generic horror action film with that bleached out look and plenty of fake CGI blood.Kate Beckinsale puts on a skin tight leather suit again as the murderous vampire Selene. The humans have discovered the subspecies of Vampires and Lycans and have been destroying them.Selene and her Lycan lover Michael were captured and put in a deep freeze in a private laboratory. Now some twelve years later Selene has emerged from her cryogenic sleep in mysterious circumstances and enters a world with supposedly no werewolves and vampires.Pretty soon she discovers the last remnants of a coven and teams up with a vampire named David (Theo James), a police detective Sebastian (Michael Ealy) and she finds out about her hybrid daughter Eve (India Eisley). Just as there are some vampires still remaining, there are also Lycans who have survived and rebuilt their numbers and Eve and Selene are crucial to their future plans.The absence of Michael (Scott Speedman) who appears as CGI in some scenes dos not help the story much which is paper thin, the dialogue is bad. The film just relies on video game action scenes with plenty of CGI and a cheap look to it.

Michael is not in this movie !!! Yes i am very happy that this actor is not anymore here, i mean seriously what a painful guy!This Michael is supposed to have a lot of powers by being hybrid, may be the most powerful immortal, and he just meow like a cat in all the franchise, never want to drink blood to get stronger or whatever vampire or lycan do to be at the top, always helped by Selene which without her, he will not stand one single battle with all the powers he supposed to have, what a joke this guy is. So he is not in this movie (just frozen in a box without acting at all) and it is a very good thing ... finally !!The story is not the best of the franchise, but it's OK, so they got a daughter in vitro, the characters are not well developed, which let us a bit hungry to know more about them, specially the cop and the super werewolf. Over all it is nice to watch one time, and that's all.