Rarely do movie prequels are made better than the original or any sequels. But Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is an exception. It has bigger battles, more drama, and better heroes and villains
From the original film, Underworld, the personal hatred between Lucian and Victor was fleshed even though the two characters were rarely seen together, if at all. Rightly so, fans spoke out in various online movie forums and generated enough buzz for the filmmakers to give us this delight of a movie.
In Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, the filmmakers gave us things that we wanted to see:
- Lucian as a ferocious lycan,
- Viktor as an iron-handed and ruthless vampire warlord,
- Werewolves and vampires pitted in an epic battle, and
- Why Viktor sired Selene into vampirehood.
1) Lucian as a ferocious lycan
Lucian was the most interesting character in the first movie. Michael Sheen was compelling in his portrayal of this lycan leader. Born of servitude, Lucian drew us in so that we desired to see which were the circumstances that broke him out of shackles to fighting the vampires. In Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, we finally saw why Victor and the vampires feared him.
2) Viktor as an iron-handed and ruthless vampire warlord
In Rise of the Lycans, we saw Viktor as a warlord of death. As a merciless ruler, he maintained the uneasy truce between humans and vampires. Viktor drew tithings from the local townships to protect them from the growing population of uncontrollable werewolves who were the predecessors of lycans and the direct offsprings of William (from the second movie, Underworld: Evolution). More importantly, he was also bent on maintaining vampire supremacy over all that lived.
3) Werewolves and vampires pitted in an epic battle
Perhaps the best thing about this movie was that it gave us an epic battle between the werewolves and the vampires. In the first movie, we saw a modern-day shootout between lycans and vampires in the train station. That was nothing. Only a mere skirmish. In this movie, we saw an army of vampires defend their castle from a horde of savage werewolves.
4) Why Viktor sired Selene into vampirehood
Selene, the major character in the first two movies, was not in this film. That’s ok. The story called for it. In this movie, we learned why Viktor took to her so much. Selene resembled Sonja, Viktor’s daughter who he condemned to death. But through Selene, Sonja lived once more. And Rhona Mitra delivered brilliantly. Sonja and Selene would look great together as leather clad twins.
All in all, I give this movie a 5 out of 5 and shoot it up to the top of the Underworld series. As a fan, I hope there are future Underworld movies to keep us intrigued. This time, I’d like to see the back story behind Lucian going underground.
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