By Stephen Pytak 

     An excellent Goth-future-noir actioner.
     There are blazing gunfights, daring escapes, cool 
weapons, like frisbee razors and glowing-ultraviolet
ammunition, and a babe in the lead who sports skin-
tight leathers.
     This is the kind of film Wesley Snipes' character
Blade goes to see first day first show.
     "Underworld" is also the best character crossover
flick of the summer.
     Genre fans will have so much fun just watching
Selene the vampire wonder woman (Beckinsale) kick
werewolf ass they'll probably forget that it falls into 
that category.
     This was the summer of the crossovers. First we had
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," then "Freddy
Vs. Jason," and now this balls-out flick about vampires
and werewolves.
     This is already starting to become a genre onto itself. 
And, as "LXG" and "Underworld" proved, if done right,
it's not necessarily a bad thing.
     In particular, there are a few things which make
"Underworld" work as well as it does.
     The first thing you'll notice is the look. Everything
is tinted blue. It's as if the world, or the "Underworld"
we're seeing is a character itself. 
     The action is solid and fresh. It's neat watching 
vampires and werewolves blowing holes in each other. 
The CG werewolf tranformations are the best I've seen to 
date. And then there's Selene.
     I never heard of Kate Beckinsale, but she carries
the picture very well. 
     Her character is a warrior with a personal mission of
vengeance, she finds herself not only in a war with
werewolves, but with her own kind. She's tough and
seemingly unstoppable.
    Selene's got a bunch of showstopping scenes. She
resurrects her former master from the dead with a blood
sacrifice. She fires her pistols to carve a manhole in
a floor to escape some charging lycanthropes. She jumps
off 10-story buildings and lands like a dove in her
butch leather mid-calfs.
     She's also very nice on the eyes and does justice
to those skin-tight, butt-hugging jumpsuits.
     There's even some cool scenes for the gorehounds
out there, in particular a very convincing head-slicing.
     By the way, I like the comic book version released
by IDW Publishing. I hate the action figures put out
by Mezco Toys. And I can't wait for the DVD.