The last we heard, Kate Beckinsale wouldn’t reprise her role as Selene for the fifth installment of the tremendous Underworld film franchise. The Hollywood Reporter, however, has revealed that the actress will in fact be returning as Selene in Underworld 5. Also returning is Theo James, who appeared in Underworld: Awakening.

Anna Foerster (director of photography on The Day After Tomorrow and White House Down) will be directing from a closely guarded script by Cory Goodman. Underworld 5 will begin shooting in Prague this October.

What do you think: Is Underworld best with Beckinsale in the lead?

Rock Hard \m/

I have to say that I am very excited about the fact that the majority of the actors are genre actors, experienced in horror, sci-fi, comic book, and action films. I love how Elder Scrolls Online has brought together Kate Beckinsale and Bill Nighy once again, and who can dislike the unforgettable voice of Dr. Samuel Loomis, aka Malcolm McDowell.

Watch the video above, and check out the list of actors below. The Elder Scrolls Online is expected on April 4th for PC and Mac and June for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

The Elder Scrolls Online voice cast:

John Cleese (Monty Python) – Caldwell
Bill Nighy (Underworld, Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows: Part 1) – High King Emeric
Kate Beckinsale (Underworld, Aviator, Pearl Harbor) – Queen Ayrenn
Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2) – Abnur Tharn
Michael Gambon (Harry Potter series) – The Prophet
Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Halloween, Silent Night) – Molag Bal
Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) – Azura
Peter Stormare (Fargo) – Jorunn the Skald King
Jim Ward (WALL-E) – Mannimarco
Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect) – Lyris Tianborn
Kevin Michael Richardson (The Cleveland Show) – Sai Sahan

Rock Hard \m/

With the Mars setting of the original movie eliminated, Colin Farrell won’t be getting his ass to the red planet anytime soon. However, the future Metropolis glimpsed in this newly released trailer seems just as exciting… tho’ I’m disturbed by the glaring lack of three-breasted hookers!

Len Wiseman’s remake of the Austrian Oak’s sci-fi classic seems poised to rake in the dough with a massive special effects budget, a more cerebral take on the story, and a pair of beauties (Wiseman’s real life squeeze Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel) along for the ride.

Farrell didn’t have much success with his last summer movie remake (the awful Fright Night), hopefully Total Recall hits all the right notes come August 3rd!

The year is 2012. Theatergoers have been bombarded with a slew of uninspired, assembly-line action pieces for the last 20 years. Explosions, gun fights, and car chases have become the conventional way of maintaining our attention because, for some reason, we like seeing the same thing, ad infinitum.

But wait – a new film rises to the occasion; It’s a film named Contraband. Perhaps this could shatter the status quo, as stated in The Prophecy. Perhaps maybe, just maybe, we’ll be treated to something we’ve been deprived of for much too long – the magical quality that is effort.

Yeah, guess again, loser. You wanted action and demanded nothing else, you got action, supplemented by nothing else. You got Contraband, the thriller that you’ve seen 10 times before, except with a much more complicated plot.

Chris Farraday (Mark Walhberg) is trying to live a simple life, with his simple wife (Kate Beckinsale), and to forget his violent and thrilling past. Unfortunately, circumstances brought about by his brother-in-law, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) have caused his quiet world to go topsy-turvy. Now he’s gotta round up a motley crew of mercs and dive back in for one last job. Will he manage to survive and make it out in the end?

What the hell do you think?

OK, so there must be something that Contraband has going for it, right? Firstly, in a manner of speaking, you could say that it looks good, but it doesn’t really get much better than that. We’re treated to some shaky-cam, random-zoom, “realist”-style directing here, and for the tone of the film, it gets the job done.

Secondly, it’s got Caleb Landry Jones, and he’s kind of likeable, because he reminds you of that one red-haired lanky neighborhood pal you had growing up. That’s nice.

But really, aside from that there’s not much else to say. Contraband alienates what could be its target demographic with a complex, interwoven narrative, which has a couple of neat plot points, but they’re resolved in the laziest way possible. Following that trend, we’re presented with a potentially intriguing handful of hard-nosed, dirty-handed criminals that help move the heist along, but they’re only interesting insofar as their clothes are interesting. In other words, they only really have character on the surface. Hell, they’re pretty much defined by the five-word sentences uttered about them when they’re introduced, and even that gives a better description than what we can glean from their actions.

Don’t get me wrong though, Contraband is well-paced and the action is directed very well. The thing is, it’s ultimately forgettable and you’ll wake up the morning after wondering whether there’s really a movie called Contraband or if it was just one of those wacky, hackneyed dreams of yours.

Here, we see not Chris Farraway, but Mark Walhberg, anticipating the moment when he can get his paycheck so that he can go home.

In a multimedia-based culture that’s been raised on shooting virtual people in the face, the best thing one can say about Contraband is that it represents just how boring the genre has become. Action for action’s sake may have played itself out, unless it’s done in a self-satirizing style, like Crank.

The Verdict: [rating:2.5]

If you’re the type who likes action because you just really like action, then Contraband honestly couldn’t hurt. If you’re the type who likes falling asleep while watching something that you paid for, then whatever floats your boat, bro – be my guest. If, however, you’re the type who likes his ‘splosions with a little originality on the side, well I’m sorry, man. Can’t help you here.

Contraband is the most metaphysically neutral movie on DVD that you can find right now. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It merely is. Make what you will of that, but just don’t take away my lemons.

Heh. They should have gone and called it “Contrabland,” knowhatImean? I mean, am I right?

Guys?

Yell! Magazine would like to inform you that for not meeting his word quota, trying to avoid a given assignment and making generally awful jokes, NoFaceNorm will be spending his next five days within The Cube. Please, show your support for Yell! Magazine by liking us on Facebook.

Yell! Rating (x/5 Skulls):

[rating:2.5]

Year Released:

13 January 2012

Director:

Baltasar Kormákur

Cast/Crew

Mark Wahlberg, Giovanni Ribisi and Kate Beckinsale

Genre

Action, Crime, Drama

Official URL:

Contraband Official Site

Like fellow action/horror film franchise Resident Evil, the Underworld series likes to pop out a new entry every couple of years like clockwork. However, unlike its zombie-infested counterpart, which has consistently starred Milla Jovovich’s Alice, Underworld has been without its central character since 2009’s Rise Of The Lycans had to make do without Kate Beckinsale’s sultry, lethal Selene… and her skintight leather suit that kick started roughly a million wet dreams.

That puddle she’s standing in is the accumulated drool of a thousand fans.

While Rise Of The Lycans, starring Beckinsale’s ex-husband Michael Sheen in the lead role, was a decent if middling box office performer, Selene’s presence was sorely missed. Fast forward to 2012 and Underworld: Awakening is now in theaters, featuring the return of our beloved heroine, a bevy of special effects and the dreaded conversion to 3-D, which is never a good thing for movies as darkly lit as Underworld. Can Awakening, the second movie in the franchise out of the hands of original series helmer Len Wiseman, live up to the potential of the first two movies? Or will it be a forgettable entry, left to linger in video store bargain bins alongside the mediocre Rise Of The Lycans?

Join me, your ever faithful and so categorically hairy he might just be a Lycan reviewer, as Yell! Magazine unleashes its review of Underworld: Awakening! For this review, I equipped myself with silver bullets, wooden stakes, and a box of tissues.

The tissues are to wipe away the tears. From all the crying. During the sad parts. Yeah, that’s the ticket…

Sadly, Awakening fails to pick up on many of the plot threads left hanging at the conclusion of Underworld Evolution. For those of you coming late to the game, Selene had seemingly grown powerful enough to stand in direct sunlight without fear of exploding like a sexy Roman candle and her erstwhile paramour, the lycan/vampire hybrid Michael (Scott Speedman) was at her side and growing exponentially more powerful. Awakening skips ahead 12 years and makes the mistake of ditching Speedman’s character entirely.

While never the most animated of actors, Speedman is as important to the franchise as Beckinsale. The interesting romance between Selene and Michael made up much of the series’ story and his exclusion sticks out like sore thumb. A poorly chosen body double stands in for Speedman during flashback sequences, but this makes the audience miss him even more. Selene wakes up in cryogenic suspension, having given birth to a daughter sometime in the interim. Awakening’s central plotline involves Selene’s quest for her missing family. Cue akimbo firearms, black leather so tight you’d have to be poured in, and sexy crawling through air ducts.

I’d follow her anywhere.

Awakening won’t win any awards for screenwriting, but even so, the story is a notch below that of the first two movies. The familiar war between wolves and vamps is mostly abandoned, instead Awakening focuses mostly on human antagonists, led by Stephen Rea’s Dr. Jacob. Rea, normally a strong performer, doesn’t dial it in so much as leave a text message. That’s how bored he appears with the project.

Faring incredibly better is young newcomer Indie Easley as Eve, Selene and Michael’s hybrid daughter. The young actress shows up Rea by several levels of acting ability, displaying a convincing grasp of what it means to star in a vampire movie. Replacing the irreplaceable Bill Nighy as head vampire honcho is Game Of Thrones’ Charles Dance, who doesn’t quite chew the scenery with the same voracity as Nighy but makes for a decent vampire elder nonetheless.

Instead of further exploring the Underworld mythos, Awakening mostly struggles to fill its running time with increasingly preposterous action sequences. While stunning, slow motion set pieces have been a part of the series since the beginning, it’s painfully obvious here that Awakening is substituting bullets for storytelling. Whatever gravitas the series once had is replaced by a ludicrous amount of spent shell casings. It’s inarguable that Beckinsale looks stunning wielding a pair of firearms, but that only takes the viewer so far, there’s simply no meat on Awakening’s bone.

“Oh, I don’t know. He tastes pretty meaty to me.”

Special effects are decent if unspectacular. A late-game appearance by a pumped-up, gigantic lycan on steroids easily steals the show, but the movie definitely shows its middle-of-the-road budget limitations. As far as the 3-D is concerned, Awakening takes place mostly at night in darkened areas, thus lending a muddy, hazy quality to the 3-D effects.

The Verdict: [rating:3.5]

All in all, Awakening is a boon to action fans looking for something to sate their appetite during the slow movie season of January. In a month filled with mostly nothing except Oscar-bait movies, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Underworld: Awakening to soothe your craving for guilt-free thrills. Still, if the series is to continue, a better script is recommended for the next installment.

Your faithful reviewer,
TheMatt

Yell! Rating (x/5 Skulls):

[rating:3.5]

Year Released:

20 January 2012

Director:

Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein

Cast/Crew

Kate Beckinsale, Michael Ealy, Stephen Rea, Michael Ealy, Theo James, Sandrine Holt, Charles Dance, and India Eisley

Genre

Action, Fantasy, Horror

Official URL:

Underworld: Awakening Official

In Underworld Awakening, Selene has been imprisoned for 12 years, how dare they treat Kate like that, by the humans. As fate would have it, the humans have been conducting experiments on her in their quest to find a vaccine to eradicate her kind. Now, Selene is pissed. Down with the humans.

There’s a part of me that sees a bit of Species 2 in this, especially if the humans had something to do with creating the massive lycan. There might also be elements of Resident Evil in this. While the first and second film in the Underworld franchise were clearly a take on Romeo and Juliet, Awakening might better be described as Othello, or perhaps a V.C. Andrews drama with an illegitimate child, the hybrid child mentioned earlier, which is clearly the offspring of Selene and Michael.

Underworld Awakening is at least presenting us with an interesting enough story, and judging from the trailer, the visuals look amazing (nope, not referring to Kate Beckinsale’s derriere as she works he way down a heating duct).

“It’s like putting your wedding dress on, or putting your school uniform on, it’s like a time-warp feeling.”

Underworld: Awakening – The Plot

Kate Beckinsale, star of the first two films, returns in her lead role as the vampire warrioress Selene, who escapes imprisonment to find herself in a world where humans have discovered the existence of both Vampire and Lycan clans, and are conducting an all-out war to eradicate both immortal species.

Underworld: Awakening 3D is set to release in theaters January 20, 2012.