“Underworld: Awakening” is for adults, apparently.

Well, this is a turn-up for the books.

Da Becks.

The BBFC – Britain’s film classification organization, who are like a more accountable MPAA  – have a very useful website which gives consumers information about classification decisions (along with some very useful release date information) and it’s only gone and told me that “Underworld: Awakening” has been passed uncut in the UK with an 18 rating.

It contains ‘strong, bloody violence and horror’, apparently.  If I were a kid today, I’d love a site like this – it would make my film watching choices so much easier, particularly when using the BBFC’s informative and only slightly hilarious Extended Content Information notes, which perhaps work in a fashion different to their intent.  If you want to know what films you SHOULD be watching for sex, violence and the like, the ECI notes are your very best friends on the internet.

Theo James in "Underworld: Awakening".

I’m sure that the good people at Sony and Screen Gems might have preferred a slightly more inclusive rating which didn’t bar tweens and teens from seeing the flick but I have to quietly voice a sigh of calm relief – the ratio of ‘kids ignoring the film and texting their friends’ to ‘nerds who, you know, want to watch the film‘ is going to be that much more biased in my favour.

Hurray for censorship (or not, in this case)!

For those of you who want some more clips and Vamps-vs-Lycans shenanigans, you can check out five clips and some new images at Beyond Hollywood’s preview page.

 

 

New pics from “Underworld: Awakening” in the wild

Fearless Vampire Warrior or Suburban Goth Yummy Mummy off to see Cradle of Filth?

Den of Geek have some new images online from “Underworld: Awakening”, which now has a UK release date of January 20th 2012.

Oddly enough, this is the same weekend that Steven Soderbergh’s odd detour into action film-making,  spy thriller “Haywire” opens, starring MMA brawler turned actress Gina Carano.

You might think that these films might potentially share a cross-over audience and that releasing both on the same weekend is a curious idea, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Charles Dance, subbing in for Bill Nighy as the obligatory Posh English Vampire Chief...

I missed it somehow, but there’s a second trailer for the film over at the official “Enter The Underworld” site and it looks…like an “Underworld” movie.  Such an array of leather duster coats, PVC outfitting and funky contact lenses on-screen that you’ll think you’ve woken up at Whitby Goth Weekend?  Check.  Ms Beckinsale glowering and throwing awesome shapes having just wiped out twenty stuntmen whilst barely perspiring? Check.  Huge, roaring werewolves with comic-book physiques, proverbially barking at the moon to the point that Metalheads will be expecting to see an Ozzy cameo? Check.

India Eisley in "Underworld Awakening". Or the goth Bratz movie sequel. One of the two...

Add to the usual stuff a slightly dodgy new character – Eve (India Eisley), who appears to be Selene and Michael’s daughter.  I tend to cede to my learned friend Dominic on these matters – he’s eternally mistrusting of any genre show or tv movie which introduces a new younger character, as this is the first sign of having teen angst drive the storytelling henceforth.

And that observation comes from a man who has subjected himself to each “Twilight” movie thus far despite not being remotely in the demographic. I’m going to guess that dropping Selene’s daughter into the mix is potentially clearing the way to have the films to continue once Kate Beckinsale decides that she’s had enough of leaping around in PVC and waging a campaign of zero tolerance against the oppressed lycanthropic community.

I’ve not seen India Eisley in her “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” telly series but her appearance in the trailer is giving me a slightly perturbing faux-mall goth vibe.   Not that this will preclude me from going to see the new “Underworld” – I’m there on the Saturday morning of the opening weekend, with all the crushing inevitability of night following day.

By the way, is there a vampire genre franchise entry currently in development where the undead can’t somehow contrive to produce offspring?  Is this some kind of cultural meme/nerd fan-fiction wish-fulfilment that I was previously unaware of?  I blame that Whedon bloke…

Kate Beckinsale back in “Underworld: Awakening”, Lycan community nonplussed…

Loud Emo tunes, stylised goth posing, in 3D, with the Becks - at this point, they're making these flicks for me...

After the mostly Beckinsale-less prequel film, “Underworld – Rise of the Lycans”, the producers of the “Underworld” movies have seen sense and made another entry in the series, with Kate Beckinsale returning as moody, PVC-clad, werewolf smasher Selene.

“Underworld: Awakening” is due out in January 2012 everywhere in the world apart from the UK.  Seriously.  The official website lists an opening date for seemingly every other territory in the world apart from mine.  Hmm.  I suspect that the film will be out in the same time frame, but it does seem quite weird to omit the country of Beckinsale’s birth from that list.

Cynics would say that to miss the fourth film in this series is to miss nothing very much, but as I’m a fan of this admittedly goofy and absurd genre film series, I’m not one of them.

Deportment, style and the ability to separate your neck from your shoulders. What's not to love?

I love that these movies are so serious!  The ‘Vamps vs Were…sorry, Lycans‘ fiction of the films is so earnest and considered that it attains far more of a place in my heart than if it were just being chucked out in the market place to earn a quick buck (Any writer of fan fiction must look at this series and think “If they can do it, why can’t I?”).

The predominantly European settings also mark this out as different for me – which makes me wonder if this fourth, shot-in-Canada film will have a rather generic look, given that a good 60% of the SF tv shows that I watch are shot in the Great White North: I’ll be waiting for Callum Keith Rennie to show up every five minutes.

If you’re wanting to see the latest trailer, you can find it here – expect the Becks in PVC, lots of sliding through hordes of disposable bad guys, plate glass explosions, earnest posing atop buildings at night and yes, the promise that the movie is in 3D, as all genre horror/action movies must be nowadays.

It's going to happen, isn't it?

Of course, the pressing question which must be answered is this: when are Screen Gems and Impact Pictures going to get together and make the ultimate throw-down – Kate Beckinsale vs Milla Jovovich in an “Underworld”/”Resident Evil” fan-service mash-up?  For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it practically writes itself.