Underworld: Evolution

Posted 18 February 2006 by PZ Myers

Dr Beckinsale visits the Discovery Institute

I saw the movie Underworld: Evolution last night. Stop looking at me like that—it was research. It has the word "evolution" in the title, doesn't it? Besides, I have this idea to improve the promotion of science by having all of our spokespeople be dangerously nubile armed women with good cheekbones, full lips, and very sharp teeth. I figure the two things we've been lacking in our presentations to the public are lust and fear, and if we can just bring those into play, we'll have an unbeatable combination.

As I learned at this movie, too, if you've got gorgeous women and slimy, ravening beasts confronting each other with big guns, nothing in the story has to make any sense at all. There was no plot: instead, there are a series of set-pieces strung together in which Our Heroine is placed in someplace dark, wet, and seedy with a supply of weapons and hapless allies/fang fodder to confront a suitably snouty or batty SFX playtoy. They aren't even consistent in how these conflicts are resolved. Big bad immortal vampires get shot multiple times at point blank range with a shotgun, and shake it off with a snarl; but when Sir Derek Jacobi, following in the fine British tradition of slumming in some well-paying American trash, finds the movie so embarrassingly bad that he has to get out, the movie makers decide that the way to have his immortal character die is to poke him with something pointy, followed by a languorous death scene in which Jacobi completely turns off his ability to act. It was impressively flat, a cinematic vampire death scene that ranks right up there with Pee Wee Herman's in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yet utterly different.

Somehow this murky, muddled mess of a movie got made, and got people (like, say, me!) to attend. There's a lesson here.

I'm going to have to get a skin-tight vinyl body suit for my next presentation.

I'll let you guess whether I'm trying to inspire lust or fear.

23 Comments

steve s · 18 February 2006

I was disappointed in Underworld, the original, for a stylistic reason--if you've got vampires and werewolves engaged in a hidden war among us, can't you have them do something more novel than shoot guns at each other? I've seen a hundred movies where two sides run around and shoot guns at each other.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 18 February 2006

I'm sorry, were there vampires or something in that movie? I didn't notice --- I was too busy watching the babe in black leather.

John Marley · 18 February 2006

I thought it made more sense than the first one.

m arie · 19 February 2006

You are Tooo funny!!!! Im here LMAO

Steve · 19 February 2006

I'm going to have to get a skin-tight vinyl body suit for my next presentation.
— PZ Myers

My eyes, my eyes!!!

normdoering · 19 February 2006

I'm going to have to get a skin-tight vinyl body suit for my next presentation.

I'd rather Tara Smith were in the skin-tight vinyl body suit instead.

Vomitus Inspiratus · 19 February 2006

Not fear. Not lust.

Something else.

Pete Dunkelberg · 19 February 2006

My, this is confusing. There evidently is a Dr Beckinsale who specializes in Australian suicide. But the one image of the Doctor, from a Hungarian site, does not look like someone named Paul. At least I now know what the DI looks like on the inside.

wamba · 19 February 2006

I was disappointed in Underworld, the original, for a stylistic reason---if you've got vampires and werewolves engaged in a hidden war among us, can't you have them do something more novel than shoot guns at each other? I've seen a hundred movies where two sides run around and shoot guns at each other.

Especially when it's so thoroughly ineffective. The lead babe must have expended thousands of rounds during the course of the movie, to almost no effect. What was the point? And did she have some strategy for what to do when she eventually ran out of ammo? Not that I noticed. Usually she waited for a jealous male or a falling helicopter to save her.

Rilke's Granddaughter · 19 February 2006

At the risk of causing offence, I have to say that I find this particular post of PZ's a trifle... inappropriate for PT. I am not a rabid feminist by any means, but I do find it a trifle off-color, and unecessarily so.

I know that sort of opinion from the 'sharp-tongued' RGD (thanks, RBH for that kind characterization) is unusual, but could you guys please stop drooling over 'nubile' women in vinyl body-suits? Or at least do it when women aren't looking?

Thanks.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 19 February 2006

could you guys please stop drooling over 'nubile' women in vinyl body-suits?

All men are scum. Don't trust ANY of us. We can't help it. It's genetic. :)

Pete Dunkelberg · 20 February 2006

Hey RG, it's lite humor. Maybe you aren't familiar with PZ's blog and various running themes including cephalopod relationships, the lite themes subtly combined here with the serious talk about Dodos and all that. The picture *with the caption* makes the post quite funny. I found myself laughing at it yesterday PM after my PC was off and I was getting ready to leave. At that time it was at Pharyngula only. I recommended putting it here too because humorless PT needed it more than PZ's blog.

Despite your misinterpretation, the image of wading into the depths of ID like that still makes me laugh.

Corkscrew · 20 February 2006

I know that sort of opinion from the 'sharp-tongued' RGD (thanks, RBH for that kind characterization) is unusual, but could you guys please stop drooling over 'nubile' women in vinyl body-suits? Or at least do it when women aren't looking?

Oh come on, like it's only guys who do that sort of thing? When I was on holiday in summer, I spent some time surfing. In a wetsuit that closely resembled the one Kate Beckinsale is wearing in the film (except that it bulged in different locations). And every single time I wandered past a girl, their eyes always dropped to an angle of about 45 degrees to the horizontal (not that I'm bragging or anything), to the extent that I was feeling extremely uncomfortable about the attention by the time I went home. Yes, there are differences in degree. Yes, men as a group tend to drool more, and with less provocation, than women. But a) in this case the provocation is deliberate, and perpetrated by a woman. And b) it's not like women as a group don't have hormonal/psychological difficulties of their own that men as a group have to put up with.

Renier · 20 February 2006

RGD wrote: I know that sort of opinion from the 'sharp-tongued' RGD (thanks, RBH for that kind characterization) is unusual, but could you guys please stop drooling over 'nubile' women in vinyl body-suits? Or at least do it when women aren't looking?

Eh... could you please not look? :-p At least we enjoy true beauty, unlike the ID blokes getting all aroused over a bacterium's *ss.

steve s (ACLU member since 2001) · 20 February 2006

or weirdo squid pervs.

Dan Phelps · 20 February 2006

Did anyone find out why the word "evolution" was used in the title?

PZ Myers · 20 February 2006

Because, as everyone knows, evolution is really cool and hip. All the smart kids talk about evolution.

Sir_Toejam · 20 February 2006

Did anyone find out why the word "evolution" was used in the title?

It was because they were elucidating the "evolution" of the vampire and werewolf races from a "progenitor". yeah, you know, the totally ridiculous and completely unnecessary backstory of the movie that was supposed to provide the interest and "sophistication" the first movie lacked. *ahem*

Sir_Toejam · 20 February 2006

hmm. the more it think about it, this is EXACTLY what the IDiots have been looking for!

here we have not one different species, but TWO, coming directly from a parent!

yup, this is "dogs giving birth to cats".

"macroevolution" at it's finest.

Corkscrew · 20 February 2006

Dogs giving birth to bats, surely?

Lenny's Pizza Guy · 20 February 2006

Huh? I'm not getting it.

How lust-provoking can a thread without pizza* possibly be?

*(Cue theme from "Town Without Pity.")

Raging Bee · 24 February 2006

*(Cue theme from "Town Without Pity.")

Why not "Men Without Shame?" or something from Men Without Hats?

Raging Bee · 24 February 2006

I can handle a thread without pizza -- as long as I get my pizza without thread.