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Underworld: Awakening

(2012)

An engaging enough premise (humanity has become aware of the vampires and lycans and hunted them down) is let down by gimmicky 3D photography and staging (of the throw things at the screen variety) courtesy of Swedish directors Marlind and Stein.

As a result, the pacing feels off during actions scenes (presumably because, if you’re not watching it in 3D you're not distracted by the AWESOME shit being hurled at you). Once the story kicks in it revolves around a rather tired and over-used “special child” plot device, so it’s up to the imported Brit thesps (Charles Dance, Stephen Rea) to carry it.

Kate Beckinsale’s leather-clad arse returns, after being mostly absent from Rise of the Lycans, and her character is refreshingly unneutered as she wantonly mistreats the humans she encounters. I’d quite liked the werewolf designs in the earlier films, but the CGI is so cheap here it wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Primeval.

**1/2

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