If the previous three Underworlds weren’t to your Lycan, there’s little reason to seek out this fourth instalment, even if it does see Kate Beckinsale back in the leather corset-cum-career straitjacket as gun-toting bloodsucker Selene.
In a direct lift from Aliens , this year’s vampire-werewolf face-off sees her awake from a 12-year cryogenic freeze to find not only that her hairy nemeses have the genetic upper hand but also that she is now a mom to raven-haired cutie Eve (India Eisley). What to do? Why, launch a one-woman assault on wolf-man HQ of course, no doubt hoping we won’t notice Swedish co-directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein are now brazenly ripping off The Matrix .
With no Michael Sheen this time around and Charles Dance stepping in for an AWOL Bill Nighy, there’s a distinct sense of sloppy seconds to a film that’s humourless throughout and, thanks to murky 3D, visually dull to boot.
OK, so gore hounds may relish the constant throat-slashing, vein-slicing and one ingenious moment when Kate rips open a stomach for some DIY heart massage. For everyone else, though, the only point of interest will be the villain’s henchman’s uncanny resemblance to Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
