Samuel Morgan5 said:I haven't managed to sit down and watch the movie yet, but the folks I play Vampire: The Masquerade with have already seen it, and they’re swearing it's fantastic.
I suppose I learned from that movie exactly why other RPG geeks love to mock people who play White Wolf games. Apparently, we're just a joke. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for another CNN rant about cinema. Since I’m trying to keep this post somewhat reasonable, I'll stick strictly to the essentials you actually need to know about "Underworld."
Vampire: The Masquerade. So, the movie basically centers on a war between two clans—or species, or whatever—werewolves and vampires, who couldn't be more different if they tried. The vampires are what you’d call Lawful Evil in D&D terms: systematically, methodically evil and incredibly decadent. You can tell by the fact that their Death Squads all sport Gestapo-style trench coats, and instead of standard targets at the shooting range, they have these 300-year-old statues (as if to say, "Yes, I'm a vampire! Life is a total mess! Here, kid, go ahead and suck on this cigarette!"). On top of that, the vampires live in a manor that is essentially one giant brothel. It's filled with women who are incredibly hot, all decked out in these 1920s-style black lace outfits. Running the whole brothel is this absolute PIMP-orrrrrr!!111 named—significantly—Kraven (which, for those of you lacking an English vocabulary, means "coward"). You can tell he's a PIMP-orrrrrr!!111 because:
He has a penchant for the tacky and the gaudy: think diamond-encrusted shirts and enough costume jewelry to make a Vegas showgirl blush.
The second guy always manages to have at least two Hos and Bitches trailing right behind him.
The typical way those Bitches like Kate Beckinsale act when they start catching feelings for a client: "Yo, yo, yo, pretty vampire momma! You aren't giving him up for nothing!"
The only entity more dangerous than PIMP-orrrrrr is PIMPMASTER GENERAL—the one Kate awakened, who essentially turned her into the Ho and Bitch she is today. That’s how incredibly cool he is. As for PIMP-orrrrrr, he's such a pathetic loser he can't even manage to climb a ladder. What a total clown.
Werewolves. Vampires and werewolves have been bitter rivals since that old 1956 flick, "Vampire meets Werewolf." Personally, I’ve always classified werewolves as Chaotic Evil—not just because they're inherently malicious, but because they lack any semblance of organization. They live in the sewers, blast heavy metal constantly, pick up their clothes at Caritas, and source their weapons from black market dealers or by hijacking trucks from former US Military depots. It’s also pretty obvious they fall under the Chaotic Evil category because their entire motivation seems to be causing absolute mayhem for the sake of it. You could tell the moment the first one appeared on screen; half the audience reacted with nothing but pure shock and disbelief. Given how much chaos Bareta can stir up on his own, you can only imagine what kind of lunatics he’s leading. On a side note, I finally understand why that guy in the music video was able to snuff out those candles with his bare chest—I suppose that's just what happens when you're a freaking werewolf.
Ben So, for all the ladies out there, just channel your inner Ben from Felicity! Wuhu! There you have it, girls—you finally get to see what happens after Ben breaks up with Felicity and leaves the show to study to be a medical technician. The guy moves to a different city, keeps studying, works in some greasy takeout joint, and lives in a crappy apartment. He even changes his name to Michael, which is clearly a symbolic way to sever all ties with his past. Then, suddenly, Kate Beckinsale shows up, pins him against a wall like he’s a literal toy, and then the werewolves attack because he’s apparently incredibly important to them. Go Ben! A moment later, the guy is in Kate's Jaguar, shouting things like, "Shit! What am I even doing here?! I should have stayed with Felicity! I'm in the wrong series, for Pete's sake! Lemme out!" And then Kate just mocks his bitching and moaning—which he clearly picked up from Felicity and her overly New Agey style of self-analysis—so she can go medieval on him. I suppose Kate was actually born in the Middle Ages, and mass deaths from the plague do tend to sharpen one's priorities in life.
Just because you're a vampire doesn't mean you actually know how to drive; some people would still end up crashing straight into a marina. It's always the women drivers. Even after six hundred years of immortality, they still haven't mastered the simple art of shifting gears manually. Such a shame about the Jaguar.
Location - I’m actually kind of annoyed I didn't realize this sooner, because I would have gladly signed up to be an extra in a cornfield just to have some Ho! & Bitch drink my blood, but apparently Underworld was filmed in Washington, D.C. I recognized it immediately by the charmingly "dilapidated and crumbling" aesthetic of most of the building facades shown in the movie.
Kate Beckinsale – and her wonderful, wonderful... latex suit! Not that I'm complaining, though! The suit is great, she’s hot, she’s clearly all-natural, pulls off some pretty impressive moves, has two guns with infinite ammo (which are definitely some kind of vampires themselves), the suit is great, and did I mention the suit is totally awesome? She’s about 5'7" of pure iron-fistin', gun-flinchin', teeth-bitin', belltower-jumpin' action. Awesome! Also, I think she really enjoys slamming both sides of double doors open dramatically, because she does it about four times in the film. She loves it so much she seemingly doesn't know how to use a regular door without kicking it down. And then her PIMP-orrrrrr tells her she doesn't know how to enjoy the little things in (un)life!
Kate's friend – incredibly hot! Seriously, hot! Kate is great, but since she's the lead, she has to be. But this girl is also totally gorgeous (I currently have her as my desktop wallpaper): a pale, blonde vampire dressed in nothing but black lace with a British accent! At one point, she gives Kate advice on what to wear to a formal dinner, pulls out a *sheer black top*, and goes, “Oh, that would look lovely on you!” And then when she looks at Ben lying on the bed and sees his wound, she hisses like a cat and leaps toward the ceiling... Incredible! To borrow a line from Stifler: SUCK ME BEAUTIFULL!
Overall: as much as I mocked and laughed at this movie, it actually possesses—unlike, say, Resident Evil—enough coolness and style (and at least three hot women) to compensate for all the nonsense we see, making it money well spent in my book. The wardrobe is cool, the soundtrack is pumping even though it's not my usual genre, the fights are solid, and I really dig the idea of filming through a blue filter. I also love how distinct the vampires and werewolves are, and how Sony basically ripped off EVERYTHING from the White Wolf games, which totally justifies why they got sued for copyright infringement. To wrap it up: yeah, now I get why everyone mocks the people who play Vampire: The Masquerade and those ultra-angsty White Wolf games, but I also envy them. Their RPG actually got a fun and decent adaptation, while D&D got... well, it got "Dungeons & Dragons," a movie so bad that Jeremy Irons took a job as an oil driller in Iraq right after.
