I knew before even going into this movie that it would not be "pure" vampire type film. Still, to be disappointed on top of that was a big letdown. I love monsters. I love vampires. I love werewolves. I would have accepted this movie a bit more if they had left out the references to these classic fiends and created a whole different type of demonic bad guy that *should* use guns. Insistance on using these two familiar and well loved creatures of the night was nothing more than a hook to draw in an audience; beyond that the people/creatures had no resemblnce whatsoever to the two legendary monsters. The mere idea of these supposedly vicious and blood/flesh hungry beasties running around shooting special guns at each other for no other reason than "we are at war" is as ludicrous as a starving man shooting a cow and not eating it.
Okay, the premise? Vampires and werewolves are at war, and we don't find out why until the end, which is nonclimatic and doesn't make any sense. There is one person on the earth that contains blood that the werewolves want, the vampires see the lycans chasing the human so they chase him down too. Yawn. That's it.
What I didn't like about the movie? Other than what I mentioned above, the plot was so thin you could read a newspaper through it. The script was horrible, and while the premise of a battle between vampires and werewolves would be very cool, you need to include some TEETH! It was as if the scriptwriters could not make up their minds whether to make anaction-shoot-em-up movie or a horror movie, and wound out with less than the sum of both.
In particular is a scene when Selena (Kate Beckinsale) drives her car into the water with Michael (Scott Speedman). He "rescues" her after she hits her head on the windshield and gets knocked out, pulls her from thewater, gives her CPR, after which she coughs out a little water and comes to. HELLO! Vampires are dead. They are not alive. They don't breathe. They don't have heartbeats. They can't be knocked out, and they can't drown. And after all this, Selena tells Kraven "He saved my life." Riiiiiiiight. What life? You're undead!
Another problem with the vampires was that they seem to have forgotten they can change into bats and fly away. Instead, they just stand there and let the werewolves chew them.With the werewolves, only Michael changes with the full moon (of course) but the other werewolves are changing back and forth like a malfunctioning traffic light. The special effects were mediocre; the turning of the werewolves was really no better han "American Werewolf In London", and all the fighting was so "A-La-Matrix" that for a moment I was confused as to which movie I was really watching.
Okay, so what DID I like about the movie? The acting was actually verye good. Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, and especially Bill Nighy played their roles very well. The acting alone is the only reason I gave this movie 2 stars instead of 1. It is a visually stylish movie as far as dress and scenery. I liked the idea of vampires and werewolves descending from one anscestor. I thought that Viktor's tomb was very cool, and the visual effects of the awakening of Viktor were pretty slick. I am glad that I rented before buying on this one. It just got scratched off my purchase list. After viewing it, I just wanted to run out and bite someone in order to fill the hunger left unsated.
