Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is a prequel that answers a question nobody was asking, and answers it badly. Released on January 23, 2009, by Sony Pictures Releasing, the third film in the Underworld series goes back to explain the feud between the Vampires and the Lycans. The tagline promises “Every war has a beginning.” The film delivers that beginning without a single reason to care about it.
Trailer, via Lakeshore Entertainment.
Viktor Builds a Race of Slaves
The plot is thin enough to state in a breath. Viktor, a vampire elder played by Bill Nighy, raises Lucian, the first werewolf born able to take human form — the first Lycan. His plan is a race of slaves: Lycans guard the coven’s fortress by day and work as laborers by night. Human nobles beg Viktor for protection against the savage werewolves, and he grants it for tributes of silver, which keeps his slaves under control.
Michael Sheen plays Lucian with conviction the script does not deserve. Rhona Mitra plays Sonja, Viktor’s daughter, who falls in love with Lucian. She is reckless and insubordinate, and the film never gives her a motive beyond that. When Lucian escapes his shackles and rescues Sonja from his werewolf brethren, Viktor cannot forgive the escape and has him whipped and imprisoned. Sonja trades her seat on the vampire council to enlist Andreas Tanis in orchestrating Lucian’s release. Lucian liberates the other Lycans as he escapes. Viktor bites Sonja’s neck, reads her memories through her blood, and imprisons her.
That is the whole engine. A secret romance, a betrayal, a rebellion.
A Rebellion With No Weight
Patrick Tatopoulos directs from a screenplay credited to Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain, based on a story by Len Wiseman, Robert Orr and McBride. The film runs 92 minutes and feels longer. The Death Dealer army is named and never made frightening. The fortress is gray. The countryside is gray. Kate Beckinsale, who starred in the previous two films, appears briefly at the end, and her cameo lands as a shrug.
Here is what the film gets wrong, in order of how much it costs:
- Lucian’s cause. He fights for Lycan independence, but the film never shows what independence would look like or why anyone should want it.
- Sonja’s imprisonment. Viktor’s discovery of the affair should be the emotional center. It plays as a plot beat.
- The war itself. The film never shows the Death Dealer army as a force worth fearing, so the battle it builds toward carries no threat.
The cast is capable. Steven Mackintosh plays Andreas Tanis, Kevin Grevioux plays Raze, Shane Brolly plays Kraven. None of them get a scene that lets them build a person instead of a position on a chessboard.
The Numbers Already Told This Story
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans premiered at the ArcLight Hollywood in Los Angeles on January 22, 2009. It grossed over $91 million against a production budget of $35 million, which means it made its money. It also received generally negative reviews, and the Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 29 percent. A sequel, Underworld: Awakening, followed in 2012 as a direct sequel to Underworld: Evolution.
The gap between the box office and the reviews is the interesting part. This is a franchise that survives on the loyalty of people who already know the mythology, and a prequel is a promise to those people that the backstory was worth the wait. Rise of the Lycans does not keep that promise. It fills in a timeline. It does not add a single thing to the feud it exists to explain.
What the Prequel Actually Proves
A prequel has one job: make the original film mean more. Rise of the Lycans makes Underworld mean less, because it turns a war with mystery behind it into a war with a checklist in front of it. Viktor is brutal, Lucian is courageous, Sonja is reckless. The film presents all three and dramatizes none of them.
The best thing here is Sheen, who plays a slave with a spine and never winks at the material. Nighy is having a better time than the movie deserves, and that mismatch is the whole experience.
Skip it. The 2003 film tells you everything this one takes 92 minutes to repeat.
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