Vampires, werewolves, and dusters, oh my!

Scott suggested to a group of friends this weekend that immortality and super-powers were not conveyed to people by magic, or viruses, or virtual reality, but rather by simply donning a long, black, leather duster jacket. That's what he has learned from watching the various Matrix movies and this weekend's box office leader, Underworld. Perhaps the best thing that can be said for Underworld is that it gets an awful lot of mileage out of Kate Beckinsale in a skin-tight black leather catsuit.

I would like to think that Kate Beckinsale, charming British waif that she is, could salvage any movie in which she appears. However, much as I enjoyed her in Cold Comfort Farm and The Last Days of Disco, my cinematic self-preservation instincts warned me away from Pearl Harbor and Serendipity. (A pity it didn't save me from Emma.) Underworld was interesting to look at, and the premise was fine, but the script was completely by the numbers, with nary a joke to give us respite from the grim, grim unlife of a vampire. The movie takes itself so darn seriously that the audience ceases to care -- if the tone of the film is the same all the way through, how can we be expected to figure out what's important to the characters?