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Underworld: Evolution

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Underworld: Evolution
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed byLen Wiseman
Screenplay byDanny McBride
Story byLen Wiseman
Danny McBride
Produced byTom Rosenberg
Gary Lucchesi
Richard Wright
Len Wiseman
Kevin Grevioux
Danny McBride
StarringKate Beckinsale
Scott Speedman
Tony Curran
Derek Jacobi
CinematographySimon Duggan
Edited byNicolas Del Toth
Music byMarco Beltrami
Production
company
Distributed byScreen Gems
Release date
  • January 20, 2006 (2006-01-20)
Running time
106 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
Hungarian
Budget$45 million[1]
Box office$111.3 million[1]

Underworld: Evolution is a 2006 American action horror film directed by Len Wiseman. It is the second (chronologically, the third) installment in the Underworld series, following Underworld (2003). The events of the film begin during the same night of the first film's finale. In the film, Selene and Michael fight to protect the future of the Corvinus bloodline from its hidden past.

Plot

In 1202, an army led by the three vampire elders (Markus, Viktor, and Amelia) arrives at a Lycan-ravaged village. Viktor and Amelia capture their target, Markus' brother, William Corvinus, the first and most powerful werewolf. Despite Markus' defiance, Viktor orders that William be imprisoned in a secret location forever.

In the present day, vampire Selene takes Michael to a safe house so that she can confront the vampire regent Kraven; she knows that Kraven intends to kill Markus and plans to stop him. However, Markus has awakened before Kraven arrives. Markus kills Kraven and his men. Lorenz Macaro, an elderly man, sends in a team of "cleaners" to investigate the aftermath from the battle in the Lycans' lair. When Lorenz Macaro examines Viktor's corpse he finds a metal disc inside it which is the match to a pendant originally worn by Sonja. The other half of the pendant is now possessed by Selene and Michael after the deaths of Viktor and Lucian.

Markus tracks Selene and Michael down and attacks them, but they evade him and hide in a warehouse. There, Selene and Michael share their feelings and engage in sexual intercourse. Now knowing that the pendant is important to Markus, Michael and Selene set out to discover why Markus wants it. Selene recalls that she saw it as a child, but does not know its significance. They travel to the hideout of the exiled vampire historian Andreas Tanis who reveals that Markus was the first vampire; one of the three sons of Alexander Corvinus, the first immortal. Markus was bitten by a bat and became a vampire, while his twin brother William was bitten by a wolf and became a werewolf. The third son remained human and gave rise to a line of mortal descendants including Michael who became the first Lycan–Vampire hybrid. The first werewolves created by William were entirely animal and unable to assume human form. Due to William's destructiveness, Markus approached Viktor, who was a dying mortal warlord at the time, and offered to turn him and his army into immortal vampires in exchange for tracking down and stopping William, and in destroying those he had infected.

Viktor did not kill the brothers because he was deceived by Markus into believing that doing so would result in the immediate extinction of all other vampires and his Lycan slaves. Tanis reveals that Selene's father was the architect who built William's prison and that the pendant is a key to the latter. Viktor killed Selene's family as they knew the prison's location, but turned Selene into a vampire so the memory of the prison's location would be kept in her blood. Tanis then refers Selene and Michael to Macaro for help. After Selene and Michael leave Tanis' residence, Markus arrives and drinks Tanis' blood to learn Selene and Michael's location, killing Tanis.

Selene and Michael visit Macaro and discover that he actually is Alexander Corvinus. Alexander reveals that he has devoted his entire immortal life to keeping the Vampire-Lycan war a secret. However, he refuses to assist Selene in killing his sons. Then Markus arrives, impaling Michael and learns the location of William's prison by drinking Selene's blood. He mortally wounds his father and obtains the other half of the pendant, after deriding his father's refusal to help William and revealing that he intends with William to rule the world as the god-like master of a race of vampire-Lycan hybrids. On Alexander's bidding, Selene drinks his blood, enhancing her physical strength and healing abilities to a level equivalent to that of a hybrid. Afterwards, Alexander blows up his ship, killing himself.

Selene, aboard Corvinus' helicopter, leads his cleaners to the prison to confront and destroy Markus, but he has already freed William. A battle ensues in which William bites the cleaners who, as a result, are turned into werewolves. Michael, who is presumed to be dead and is carried aboard the helicopter, regenerates and joins the fight in his hybrid form, killing William by ripping his head off. Selene engages Markus in hand-to-hand combat, killing him by kicking him into the rotor blades of the cleaners' crashed helicopter. After the battle, Selene realizes that Alexander's blood has made her immune to the lethal effects of sunlight on vampires.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

The film was not well received by critics. As of May 30, 2012, it has a 16% overall approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 101 reviews.[2] A few scenes of the film were shown in a panel at Comic-Con in San Diego, in July 2005; however, these scenes did not contain any plot spoilers of the new script, with attendees only being informed about the new hybrids by production designer Patrick Tatopoulos. The previewing was well-received as hundreds of fans waited hours to see a clip of the film as well as Kate Beckinsale and the other stars of the movie.[3]

Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times criticized the film's "steel-blue filter" and described it as "a monotonous barrage of computer-generated fur and fangs".[4] Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle opened his review "you can tell that Underworld: Evolution is trying to be an artistic action-horror film, because every scene is bathed in the color blue", going on to say the film is "an admirable attempt to test the boundaries of the genre" but that it is confusing and not fun to watch.[5]

Box office

The film opened on 3,207 screens with a weekend box office (January 20–22, 2006) of $26.9 million or an average of $8,388 per theater.[6] As of March 12, 2006, the film grossed a total of $62.3 million in the United States and $111.3 million worldwide.[6]

Prequel and sequel

The background history that led to the current Vampire-Lycan War (depicted in the first and second films) continues in the third film of the series, the prequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

A fourth film, sequel to Underworld: Evolution, was released on January 20, 2012, called Underworld: Awakening.[7]

Music

Soundtrack

Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[8]
Track listing
  1. "The Undertaker" (Renholdër Mix) by Puscifer – 3:57
  2. "Morning After" (Julien-K Remix) by Chester Bennington – 4:14
  3. "Where Do I Stab Myself in the Ears" (The Legion of Doom Remix) by Hawthorne Heights – 3:58
  4. "To the End" (RnR Cheryl Mix) by My Chemical Romance – 3:12
  5. "Vermillion, Pt. 2" (Bloodstone Mix) by Slipknot – 3:39
  6. "Burn" (Alleged Remix) by Alkaline Trio – 4:02
  7. "The Last Sunrise" (Dusk Mix) by Aiden – 3:55
  8. "Bite to Break Skin" (The Legion of Doom Remix) by Senses Fail – 4:08
  9. "Her Portrait in Black" by Atreyu – 4:02
  10. "Washing Away Me in the Tides" by Trivium – 3:47
  11. "Eternal Battle" by Mendozza – 4:10
  12. "Our Truth" by Lacuna Coil – 4:04
  13. "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" by Gosling – 5:01
  14. "Why Are You Up" by Bobby Gold – 3:10
  15. "Suicide" by Meat Beat Manifesto – 3:14
  16. "HW2" by Cradle of Filth (Cover of "Halloween II", originally recorded by Samhain) – 3:38

Score

Untitled
Underworld Evolution (Original Score)
No.TitleLength
1."The Crawl"0:52
2."Ol' Timey Music"4:58
3."William Captured"0:55
4."Previously..."2:18
5."Safehouse 2 Crypt"4:12
6."Stay"0:55
7."Corvin's Cruisin' Crypt"3:11
8."Morgue Medallion"2:43
9."Mike to Tavern"1:30
10."Mikey Doesn't Like It"3:13
11."Cue de Cilantro"2:15
12."Trunkin'"2:38
13."Marcus Trumped"0:30
14."Marcus Hits Snooze"0:50
15."Beware of Dog"3:53
16."Shot Glass"1:53
17."Family Values"4:29
18."Marcus Taps Tannis"2:08
19."Patricide"4:15
20."Alexander Can Help"1:02
21."He Is My Sonshine"1:31
22."Heli - Ride"3:36
23."William's Castle"2:54
24."Selene, Willie & Marcus"3:36
25."Trying to Kill Will"0:59
26."Kill Will 2"2:10
27."Marcus Trumped Again"1:33
28."The Future"2:34
29."Something I Can Never Have" (performed by Flyleaf; cover of the original record of Nine Inch Nails)4:57
30."EracTou" (performed by Cevin Key & Ken Marshall)3:19
Total length:75:56

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Underworld: Evolution".
  2. ^ Underworld: Evolution Movie Reviews, Pictures. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  3. ^ (July 18, 2005). Comic-Con 2005: Underworld: Evolution Panel. IGN. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  4. ^ Catsoulis, Jeannette (January 21, 2006). "The Vampires and Werewolves, Still Fighting Tooth and Nail". The New York Times.
  5. ^ Hartlaub, Peter (June 24, 2011). "Vampires and werewolves get mopey in 'Underworld'". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  6. ^ a b Underworld: Evolution (2006). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  7. ^ "Underworld 4 New Dawn movie". Teaser Trailer. Retrieved 2011-03-26.
  8. ^ "Underworld Evolution (Original Soundtrack)". Allmusic.
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