Cinema has a lot to be thankful to the Underworld films for. For one thing, it kept the idea of big-budget genre fare alive in that wilderness period between the eighties/nineties Arnie action film heyday and the current renaissance of superhero movies we're enjoying today. It also kept director Len Wiseman regularly distracted from making more by-the-numbers sequels and remakes like Total Recall and Die Hard 4.0. In terms of the films themselves, though? Not so much. A inexplicable phenomenon that has somehow encompassed four films so far - including a prequel, with a reboot on the horizon next year - the Underworld movies were a weird mash-up of The Matrix's colour scheme and propensity for leather with the full-blown vampire horror of Blade. But also there were werewolves. The central conflict of the series is a war between the two sets of supernatural beasties, which gets more confusing when one falls in love with another. It's doubly confusing when you cast an eye over the cast list and, once passing people who probably don't know better (sorry, Kate Beckinsale), it turns out there's scores of great British actors who appeared in multiple Underworld films. Did Bill Nighy have bills to pay or something? Worst of all might be Michael Sheen as the bad guy in the first film - which became the lead role in Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans - angsty werewolf Lucian. Pantomime, but in the worst possible sense. What's your favourite Sheen performance? And what's his worst? Have your say down in the comments.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
