by JB
"Show us your tits!" That's what I yelled to the annoying young women who were posing for each other's cell phones a few rows in front of me at the local cineplex last night. Flash photos. After the film had started. Not even during the previews, but during the feature.
They didn't, alas; nor did they immediately stop photographing themselves making pouty Miley Cyrus faces at each other. You can put lipstick on a pig, but that doesn't bridge the semantic chasm between "jowls" and "cheekbones." I went and asked the theater employee kid whether it was legal to use cell phones to record the movie--yes, I'm the guy who spent eight dollars on a ticket, dammit, and I'm gonna watch this movie in peace!--and he went down the aisle to glower at the budding guerilla (I spell that generously) documentarians.
I went to the movies last night intending to see one of the two Academy Award nominees for Best Motion Picture that were showing, but it didn't happen. Frankly I'd rather chew my own face off than pay retail to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Number one, with the exception of The Curious Case of Dr. Hummp, there are no good movies with titles like that. Number two, this. Number three, I saw a commercial for CCBB and thought it looked stupid. Anyhow, I only like Brad Pitt when he's unintelligible. If you need a Jason Statham voiceover to clarify your point, you're facking unintelligible, mate. Is this movie at all like Jack? Because I hated Jack.
The other Oscar option was Slumdog Millionaire, which was not going to happen because Mrs. B refuses to see any movie in which the dog dies, and something about the title put her on her guard. I told her I didn't even think there was a dog in the film, and she reminded me that I said the same thing about Amores Perros. Touche. This after talking her into seeing City of God by telling her it would probably be something like The Bells of St. Mary's. She is not a trusting woman.
So the inevitable compromise choice was Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans. It's a prequel, and it's dramatically better than Underworld 2, which is admittedly faint praise. Its subtitle (or post-colonial as I like to call it) underscores the stupidest thing about this whole silly franchise: if you're imagining a terrifying and yet sympathetic race of werewolves, naming them after a fungus-algae symbiont is a lot less badass than you might think. Wouldn't you expect somebody named Kevin Grevioux to know a cool name when he hears one? To be absolutely clear: I am not making fun of Kevin Grevioux. I swear. Nor am I looking forward to Underworld 4: Lycan Sclerosis.
So, yeah. Romeo and Juliet with werewolves--uh, Lycans--and vampires. Or maybe Spartacus--with Lycans and vampires. Bill Nighy can't be blamed for all of the stupid things his character says, but I think it's fair to blame him for saying the better lines indifferently and the stupidest lines emphatically and with absurd enunciation. Let's ascribe it to self-loathing.
And I guess we have eight years of nucular proliferation to thank for the repeated use of the non-word "pestulence." Pestulence? Is that a petulant pestilence that causes pustules?
If you see this movie, you've probably already decided to like it, and that may get you through it. You probably also spend your whole paycheck at Hot Topic every week. Underworld 3 is in equal parts Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire, and that's saying something. Pestilence or pustule? You make the call.