Fridae

There's only so much vampires one can stomach. Just ask Hammer Horror, Christopher Lee, and Bela Lugosi how many vampire or werewolf flicks they could make before they or the audience got tired of it. It doesn't get any better even if you throw in werewolves either. Like the Resident Evil franchise, the Underworld series has been cursed with sequelitis, each instalment doomed to increasing pointlessness under the law of diminishing franchise creativity.

Coming off from the extremely weak prequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Underworld: Awakening is surprisingly good. For one, it takes the franchise into uncharted waters by changing the fictional universe drastically. In between Underworld: Evolution and this film, humans, hitherto unaware of the secret lycan-vampire war, somehow find out and begin a very successful extermination of both species, culminating in the capture and deep freezing of franchise mascot Selena (Kate Beckinsale in her signature leather suit).

It is 12 years in the future of this remarkably changed post-apocalyptic world (at least for vampires and lycans alike) that Selena awakes and must find her bearings, seek out new allies, and destroy new enemies while on the run.

It takes chutzpah to take a fictional universe that has been painstakingly built in the previous films of a franchise and dash it to pieces. It takes sheer genius to then build something coherent and meaningful out of the ruins of that worldbuilding effort – and that is what's remarkable about the script, partially written by sci-fi giant J Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Thor, Changeling). Underworld: Awakening is as revolutionary as Highlander II: The Quickening – only that this comes at the tail-end of a diminishing franchise, and that it's far better written and executed than Highlander II: The Quickening.

As an action film, Underworld: Awakening is the goriest entry in the series with extreme fight sequences that show off Ms Beckinsale's talent for looking really cool while kicking CGI monster ass.