Continuing the trend from the previous film of simplifying the storyline, Underworld 4: Awakening goes one step further. So, what's the plot? Errr, there isn't one. Seventy-eight minutes after it begins, the titles start rolling and you'll be scratching your head wondering what just happened.
Set shortly after the events of Underworld 2: Evolution, humanity has become aware of the existence of vampires and werewolves. In typical human fashion, they decide that the best response to this revelation is to exterminate them. It goes well, with both species driven to the brink of extinction and Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman) captured. When Selene escapes from the research facility she is being held in twelve years later, she begins suffering from visions and discovers that they are not Michael's, as she had assumed, but her daughter Eve's. Eve (India Eisley) is a hybrid and managed to escape, freeing her mother. They run into a vampire, David (Theo James), who takes them back to his coven where his father, Thomas (Charles Dance), berates him for bringing a wanted fugitive and a hybrid child to their safe house. They're attacked by werewolves and then they go on the offensive against the corporation that locked Selene up for all those years.
For the first twenty-five minutes, the film doesn't really go anywhere. We're filled in on the purge against vampires and werewolves and then Selene escapes, proceeding to wander around for a bit. After she meets Dave and her daughter, they go to the coven and things stall again. Then the werewolves attack and there's a big fight. Once it's over, we're more than two-thirds of the way through the film and pretty much nothing has happened. Dr. Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea) and his son, Quint (Kris Holden-Ried), are introduced as perfunctory villains and Selene gets help from friendly human detective Sebastian (Michael Ealy), but really, at this point, who cares?
Kate Beckinsale is her usual growling, ice-cold self and Charles Dance adds a sense of gravitas to the proceedings but the main bonus is that Scott Speedman doesn't technically appear on screen. Michael's roughly two minutes of screen time comes through use of a stand-in and a digitally-created likeness of Speedman. Thank goodness for that.
Scott Speedman's absence aside, there's really nothing else memorable or exciting about the film. There's no plot to speak of, no great fight scenes, no interesting characters, no reason to watch it at all. Underworld 4: Awakening is bland, boring and instantly forgettable.
4 out of 10.
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