Underworld
Screen Gems | Release Date: September 19, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
15
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
At heart, this is an old-fashioned monster flick decked out with Hollywood's full battery of high-tech visual effects. It's as goofy as it is gory -- stay away if you don't like in-your-face mayhem. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's Shakespearean in its political machinations and closer to "Saving Private Ryan" and "Starship Troopers" than to "Dracula" or "The Howling." Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
However much Underworld recycles elements from other films, it carries us into a well-constructed, convincingly scary world worth visiting. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The filmmakers' decision to go with prosthetic enhancements rather than CGI gives the snouts, fangs and snapping jaws a refreshingly tactile look. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It is the perfectly cast Beckinsale who lifts Underworld out and away from the film’s many moments of silly gravitas and steers it into a truly interesting take on the whole vampires 'n' werewolves genre. Read full review
63
PremierePeter Debruge
Riddled with ammunition for what Alfred Hitchcock called the "Plausibles"--those poor-sport moviegoers who insist on pointing out a movie's inconsistencies instead of simply enjoying the ride Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
An example of a vampire movie for the new century -- stylish, gothic, gory, and loud. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
As murky and derivative-looking as the film is, it moves with an authority that pummels you into submission. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneRobert K. Elder
Has one other thing in common with "The Matrix Reloaded" -- too much story, too many angles. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Visually it's wild fun, since fledgling feature director Len Wiseman started off in production design, and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos's diverse credits span from "Godzilla" to "Stuart Little." Yet with Underworld's guilty pleasures come copious clinkers, from its nuts-and-bolts narrative foundation to Wiseman's inability to direct actors beyond cartoonish interaction. Read full review
60
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
The funny thing about all this is that a half-hour into Underworld I couldn't wait for it to be over. When it really was over, I couldn't wait for the next installment. Go figure. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Takes itself so seriously that it never has fun with its shopworn genre elements. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Alas, as is often the case with lower-end genre movies, the story cooked up by Wiseman and his friends, actor Kevin Grevioux and the film's screenwriter, Danny McBride, is decidedly less important than the look of the film and its influences. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's so impossible to care about the characters in the movie that I didn't care if the vampires or werewolves won. I might not have cared in a better movie, either, but I might have been willing to pretend. Read full review
50
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Though it sometimes feels as if it's four hours long, Underworld has going for it an intriguing fantasy premise, an eventful plot and a look that is diverting, if finally a bit monotonous. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldCharles Savage
A loud and relentlessly overstated B-movie, and yet not entirely stupid. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
All of this is accomplished with buckets of blood, but almost no sense of flesh: It's hard to recall a more sexless vampire flick. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
A slick disappointment -- though there's much unintentional humor to be enjoyed. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
By the end, I was starting to ponder questions like, If a vampire mates with a lycan-vamp hybrid, which parent will have to convert? Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyChuck Wilson
Beautiful in its dark, contrasting blues and blacks, Underworld is nonetheless a remarkably humorless movie, and not even the adroitly hammy Bill Nighy, as the vampire king, can leaven the overwrought seriousness of it all. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Beckinsale delivers even if Underworld doesn't quite manage to follow through on its initial promise. Read full review
40
The New York TimesAnita Gates
Achieves only loudness, aggressive confusion and one of the silliest head-splittings in film history. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
So clotted with back story that the Romeo and Juliet-style romance between a warrior vampire and a reluctant werewolf never has a chance to breath, Len Wiseman's revisionist horror tale is all look and no bite. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
This is the silliest horror movie I've seen in years, though some of the special effects are pretty good. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
A hollow, relentless mess. Read full review
30
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Plays less like a novel re-imagining of a classic if campy narrative than a drearily self-conscious exercise in Know Your Film References. Read full review
30
Film ThreatKevin Carr
There's too much pretension in this film. Lots of intense stares into the camera. Lots of uncomfortably hip clothes. Lots of pompous names for themselves. Read full review
30
SlateDavid Edelstein
125 minutes is a long time to stare at a movie that's basically in bleached blue-and-white with occasional splotches of brick red. The palette reinforces the monotony of the storyline. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Not since "Battlefield Earth" pitted overacting, nine-foot-tall Psychlos against puny man-animals has there been an interspecies match-up this perversely uninteresting. Read full review
25
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Neither side is worth rooting for in this ridiculous blood feud, which features some of the year's most laughable dialogue. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
Could use script transfusion, or at least a few quarts of levity. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
"Your incompetence is most taxing," says the chief vampire (Bill Nighy). A line that pretty much nails this rusty Blade. Read full review
20
Village VoiceAlex Pappademas
Speedman's such a nonentity here I worried that the theater air-conditioning would blow him off the screen. Read full review
20
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It needs a wooden stake AND a silver bullet through its script. Read full review
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