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The Lycans Were Bad the Whole Time | Underworld: Awakening · Potato Chip Pictures - A Podcast

0:00
I I was just saying that I was surprised at who the writers
0:06
were for this movie because there were four of them and one
0:12
of them was the director of the 1st 2 movies.
0:14
It seems like this is his baby, this franchise.
0:19
Like if he's not directing, he's usually producing or he's
0:23
involved in other ways. So he was part of the writing
0:28
team. Then you had this John Lavlin
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Clavin and Allison Burnett, 2 dudes primarily known for
0:37
writing this movie. But Allison Burnett has a lot of
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writing credits. I just had never heard of any of
0:47
the stuff he had written. But then the 4th writer is J
0:50
Michael Straczynski, and he's a famed writer.
0:57
Like the? First, yeah, the first time I
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had heard of him was in the 90s when he was the primary writer
1:05
of Babylon 5, the television show.
1:08
And he sold it by saying it has to be this many seasons and you
1:14
have to play the episode sequentially.
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Every bit of the story is planned, and that's what we're
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going to film, and that's what the audiences have to expect to
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see in order. But he also has a comic book
1:32
background where he wrote for Spider Man, Superman and Thor,
1:36
as well as several other characters.
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But just a huge name, Ryder. Just seems a bit.
1:42
In this. Comic book you, but yeah, I
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don't know how much that's going to help it.
1:54
Are you saying this was not a 10 out of 10 movie?
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Sure. Yeah, this is not ten out of 10.
2:02
All right, well, let's talk about it then.
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This is not 9 out of 10. This is not 8 out of 10.
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If you keep going, you're going to reveal too much.
2:17
Leave something to the imagination.
2:19
I guess it could be 7 out of 10 some universe.
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Yeah, let's play in a world where this might be a 7 out of
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10 movie. Who knows?
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Maybe. Yeah, let's us begin.
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Hello and welcome to Potato Chip Pictures, the movie franchise
2:52
review podcast. I am the Sammy Davis.
2:56
Hello again, I'm Justin. And today we are looking at the
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4th movie in the Underworld franchise, Underworld Awakening.
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From 2012. It had the largest budget of all
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of our movies so far coming in at $70 million.
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This will remain the largest budget for the franchise, but it
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had a return of $160 million. So the largest that we have seen
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from this franchise in terms of box office returns, you know?
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Yeah. I mean, that's not, I don't know
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if that's impressive or not impressive, $70 million.
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Yeah. And then they returned 90 more
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million. I'm looking at their other big
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success in terms of profit, and that was the very first movie
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where they returned like 73,000,000.
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So this did have the largest profit margin as well.
4:13
So good on them for that. I guess.
4:15
Like they finally had a bigger hit than the first movie.
4:21
I mean, for the whole reason that Celine is back, I mean
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that's, I think it's the main draw.
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I think that was what they used to advertise this particular
4:34
movie. They were like Kate Beckinsale
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returns and she's almost naked. Although I think that that's ACG
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body of our naked Celine early in the movie.
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Just hanging upside down in a frosted What do you call it when
4:58
you freeze somebody? Oh, cryogenic chamber.
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Yeah, she's upside down. It's like why?
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And then when she gets out, there's lots of very CG, very
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intelligent fog that like shrouds her body no matter where
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she moves. But you know, whatever, that's,
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that's how you get to $70 million.
5:27
You pay animators for your intelligent fog and perfect
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body, Yeah. Imagine that they paid their
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news coverage team quite so much it.
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I feel like that's what makes most shows feel unreal.
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Even though it's already a werewolf and vampire story.
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The initial bits where they're talking about the purges and
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what not just always hits like a video game newscast.
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Almost felt like Last of Us, like just a bunch of news clips
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to get us caught up. Yeah, in the time between.
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I think I've I've taken some of your criticisms from last time
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to be like, well, she's been asleep 12 years.
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Why are you what are you talking about, Mr. Vampire?
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Later on, yes, can go bit by bit, but it's like you've been
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suffering for for a long time. It's like it's been 12 years
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since she fell asleep. I'm confused.
6:40
All right. Well, the last thing I had is it
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was directed by the team. Merlin and Stein, that is Mons,
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Merlin and Bjornstein. And then of course, I already
6:53
mentioned the writers. But yeah, let's let's jump into
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it. We've got this very interesting
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opening because it simultaneously embraces all of
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the old Lord and essentially says nobody cares.
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We've got a sci-fi movie to get to.
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Yeah, I could agree with that. It I feel like it's just here's
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the back story of my character and then like the time doesn't
7:27
matter anymore. Like somehow from the wiki this
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is 6 months after Evolution Revolutions.
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I can't remember which one it is.
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Evolution. And so we get Celine and a
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hypothetical Michael. I mean, he's there, but they get
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the very. Beginning right the very end.
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Yeah, right before they are frozen and it.
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I don't know that any of that covers what happened in
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evolutions, even though I don't remember what happened in
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evolution 'cause they just. They didn't specifically call to
8:18
it, but I think what they did was better.
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I genuinely think this was the one time this franchise ever
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trusted its audience to be intelligent in that in Evolution
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they had Alexander Corvinus, I think the immortal human, and he
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said that he had been cleaning up behind the scenes so that the
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mortal world never knew about the vampires or the lichen.
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He is dead. And six months later, anything
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that any vampire or lichen does no longer has a secret
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organization cleaning it up. There are witnesses.
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They are reporting things. No one is coming to their doors
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to, you know, threaten their lives if they should speak.
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The movie never tells us this, but that is the entire premise
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for the rest of the movie. The fact that now the mortal
9:23
world knows that vampires and like can exist because there's
9:27
no longer an Alexander Cor. Venus pop quiz first movie How
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many vampires exist in their little city?
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Well, we only see their coven and they mentioned that it's
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just their coven, but they do suggest there are three covens
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because there are three elders. And I'm saying that because they
9:51
say that Amelia's coven is merging with Victor's coven,
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even though it's going to be Marcus who comes out.
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And so I had thought, well, maybe that means that Marcus has
10:02
a coven that's already here or something.
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Second movie we learned Marcus never had a coven and Amelia and
10:12
Victor were part of the same coven.
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And then 4th movie, they're like there's thousands of.
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Tags. They're everywhere.
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Exactly. It's like we went from the
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original like 3 people. We went back in time with the
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original 3 vampires and their dad.
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And like I imagine the covens stay underneath whoever's the
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main vampire. But then we have like, I think
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maybe there's some kids, but they're like, well, it's
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lichens. But like in the video montage,
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there's like, let's pull out all these people from where they
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live. There's vampires and werewolves
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among us. It's like the vampires at this
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point still are sensitive to light.
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How would they have blended in to your society that you are
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doing a purge? It so -5 points at the very
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beginning because what is this population burst in six months
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that populates an entire like city that they have to go under
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martial law? As for the vampires, I would
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agree with you there. For the lichens, they kind of
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were like, oh, they hit underground and now they've
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like, but even then they're not in society if they're
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underground. Yeah.
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Bad start, horrible start. Yeah, and it's the entire
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premise. I get where you're coming from,
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but I am good with it be for two reasons.
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OK. First one is that I'm I'm
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following along. I'm like OK, this makes sense.
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We're in a world where the clean up crew is gone.
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So of course that would lead to repercussions.
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So I'm I'm buying into that on its own.
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But the second thing is this whole franchise is known for
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just making up lore as it goes along and being like, who cares
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what we said in the past? This is what we're saying now.
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And. So I guess I've been primed.
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Yeah, I guess I just accept that now there are thousands of them.
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And if I had to give a defense, the the weakest one I can give
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is that when the elders are killed, the vampires scattered
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and what looks like thousands of covens are likely just groups of
12:35
3 or 4. You know, we see a large one in
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the movie, so I'm contradicting myself like.
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Yeah, and even that guy who Who is he did Southern Vampire, we
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get to see how does he come into this family tree.
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He wasn't in the other movie, Grant.
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This is. A movie that exists like now
13:01
it's trying to make a movie with the plot that doesn't
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necessarily have to exist with the rest of it.
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So I can, I can get my brain into there and, and say that's
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that's probably where it's where it's going to start from.
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But I think it it sets up a couple of obstacles and tripping
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hazards later on because the rest of the world that hasn't
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been frozen has to somehow react to the purges.
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Mm hmm. Before we get to the quote UN
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quote present, I have to point out the thing I hate in the
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intro, the thing that So I watched this movie twice this
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week. It's one of the I think this is
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the only one I've watched twice. No, I think I watched the first
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one twice. But the point is I was like, I'm
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going to watch this again to make sure I agree with myself.
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And both times when they ambush Michael and Celine, they say
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three times that they are using a silver grenade.
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They first say load the silver grenade and then they say maybe
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they only say it twice, but they do say fire the silver grenade
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and it hits Michael's square in the chest.
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Yeah, and I stick inside of him. Yeah, so I kept waiting for what
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a grenade is supposed to do exactly, which is blow up, and
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it never did. They had to find an AUV grenade
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and throw that in the water. But like, oh man, that makes me
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so mad that they made it a point.
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They made it a big point that this is a silver grenade.
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'Cause he's probably they just didn't.
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Blow up. Make sure you use the thing.
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Mm hmm. Surprise hybrids are immune to
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silver. That's actually a really big
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plot point for this, so I give them that.
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And. To be learned that last time.
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Immune to explosions and yet it never exploded.
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Oh it just makes me mad. But you're right.
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I don't know if they ever established that Michael is
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immune to silver, but it is a a huge idea and it becomes the
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driving factor of the third act of this plot.
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But. Which I had to.
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I did kind of watch 1 1/2 times. I had to figure out what in the
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world was happening with these lichens.
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OK, I have to give my big picture statement now, and that
15:43
is that this movie is incredibly dumb.
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But it is fun. And so that's where I'm going to
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stand. And there's going to be a lot of
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times when we're talking about something and you might point
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out a scene that's incredibly dumb.
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And I do agree with you, but I might defend it.
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It might just be dumb fun. Yeah.
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Anyway, yeah, let's let's, let's carry on.
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Yeah, if we get through the intro where they're separated,
16:15
we see that Celine wakes up upside down in the nude,
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cryogenically frozen, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
16:26
But we get to see that she's getting she's escaping.
16:30
And we're we're starting the movie off with an escape from
16:34
holding. It's it's very dramatic, lots of
16:38
action, lots of slices and bloods and guns.
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My main criticism is the damn lights.
16:46
Can we stop flashing the damn lights because it's horrible
16:52
you. Know How would you know it's
16:54
vampires and werewolves if we didn't have horror lighting?
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Like once you notice it, that just keeps flashing in order.
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Oh yeah. I think there's even a sound
17:08
effect that goes with it to really make sure we know the
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lights are strobing. I'm like, is this an alarm
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setting? Because it's horrible.
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You want light to see what you're doing if you're trying to
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evacuate. So that we we, we start off at
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the beginning with horrible. I I like the escape, but the one
17:30
thing that irked me in retrospect is the fact that
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these are definitely human body or human guards.
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That. She is escaping from she.
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Can. It's true, she can slice necks.
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She can use regular guns. This is horrible.
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Why would werewolves have silver bullets?
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Horrible. You're doing a horrible thing.
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I ruined it again for me. I'm.
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Sitting here like I shouldn't say this except it irked me so
18:04
much like. The second viewing.
18:06
There's yeah, like in the escape.
18:09
I'm having a good time. She breaks a dude's arm, she
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stabs another dude in the head. She gets a gun and she's
18:15
starting to do her cool gun thing that she does.
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And then she gets to a hallway. I guess this is before she gets
18:23
the gun. She gets to a hallway where
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she's got her little scalpel. What is that called?
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Scalpel. Thank you.
18:30
I was sitting here like what is that tool?
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The thing? Yeah, the thing.
18:35
So she's got a scalpel and she holds it underhanded so that,
18:41
you know, she can use it to start slicing necks.
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And she does 5 slices. Like they show us every single
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person who gets their necks sliced and it it doesn't, it's
18:51
not a good effect. I don't like it.
18:53
Like, yes, she's fast for the first time in this franchise,
18:58
she has demonstrated vampire speed.
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But you know, then then she just does the same move five times in
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a row and I'm just like, lame, lame.
19:11
Do do cooler stuff. Break someone's arm and and stab
19:15
them in the head. That was cool.
19:17
That was pretty cool. I yeah, I mean, maybe that
19:23
hallway falls in her dumb fun cuz it.
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Yeah, it, it is just dumb And, and it you know, it's, it's a
19:30
distinctive visual. I have seen that when people
19:34
show clips of this movie, her sliding at the end with blood at
19:40
at her feet and everybody having blood below them like it's a
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it's a very good image right at the end.
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It's just that 5 slicing of necks where I'm like, come on,
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we have to see this again. We do.
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We have to see it for everybody. Slice, slice, slice.
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Yeah, I love that. Her shoes are in a little glass
20:03
container next to other bottles of medicine or whatever, and her
20:08
corset is in a thing next to other things, but we never see
20:13
her grab pants. She should be pantsless coming
20:16
out of this place. Same with her shirt and trench
20:18
coat. Those aren't anywhere that we
20:20
see. But why do they have anything
20:22
stored with their scientific equipment?
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For 12 years, apparently. Like, yeah, that's, that's the
20:31
timing is only 12 for the main reason of the movie, but we'll
20:38
we'll get there in just a second because she's been released and
20:43
she's escaped and she can manage to shrug off a bullet to the
20:47
forehead and get no memories from the bite that happened
20:52
there. Yeah.
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Which threw me in like. That's that's 12 years of memory
20:58
that she should get because remember, we now have perfect
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blood memory and we will have perfect blood memory later on in
21:05
this movie. Exactly.
21:08
I guess maybe they're trying to tell us that only vampires have
21:12
blood memory and humans don't, but I I really have a hard time
21:16
believing that it should be blood just has memories.
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But whatever, whatever, I'm fine.
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Whatever. Yep, let's introduce our next
21:26
character, which is a detective doesn't believe that lichens are
21:32
still killing people. Later on, we'll find out he
21:37
actually does believe that lichens are still around.
21:40
But I don't know what to make the detective.
21:43
I didn't love him, but I I'm glad he's here for the ride.
21:48
Because she needs somebody. Because Michael is not in this
21:52
movie. Finally we got a Selene movie
21:58
without Michael. Holy crap it's so so
22:01
appreciated. I OK, second viewing made the
22:08
cop better, genuinely. So knowing that he did believe
22:12
it when we get to that first scene and he's like, look,
22:16
there's there hasn't been an attack in years.
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Don't report this. Trust me.
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It's going to become a whole thing.
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Like I'm hearing on this first viewing, I'm like, OK, so like
22:29
he's just a grizzled detective who doesn't want to do his job
22:32
anymore. Like that sucks. 2nd viewing I'm
22:35
like OK, he's been burned by the system.
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He's been yelled at for reporting something.
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The thing that didn't work on both viewings and frankly got
22:48
worse the second time around is his young partner who's in the
22:52
movie for two scenes and then we never see him again.
22:55
You. Don't have to have your partner
22:57
with you all the time, right? People don't do that.
23:00
They they try to set him up as this guy who's going to be a
23:03
problem because he's, you know, young and by the book.
23:07
Yeah. And so he's going to report
23:09
things, and that's going to, you know, rattle some chains.
23:13
So clearly we got to pay attention to this.
23:15
But he doesn't matter in the movie.
23:17
He'll show up one more time, and then we'll never see him again.
23:20
Nothing ever comes of this like oh I hate wasted characters.
23:26
Well, it's a good thing you don't see another face that you
23:30
only think is important because the actor is a beautiful man.
23:34
Like, oh, there's this crowd, Here's a guy, he's sees Celine.
23:40
Oh, he's going to follow her. That's.
23:43
At least he shows up a few times throughout the He is in every
23:47
act of the movie, so I will give that character credit.
23:52
It just kind of like happens that he's at this underpass,
23:57
overpass or wherever it is which hits the movie.
24:01
It has to happen. So OK, I don't even know his
24:07
name. Dave I.
24:09
Know David, thank you for saying it because Dave, his father
24:14
played by Charles Dance, says it the most.
24:19
I don't. I love Charles Dance.
24:20
I'm glad we always get some high caliber actor in this franchise.
24:27
Tell me Charles Dance's character name, because I have
24:31
no idea. I don't.
24:33
Know if they ever said it, I can cheat by looking up the cast,
24:37
which I have pulled up. OK, it's Thomas.
24:40
I don't think they ever said that.
24:42
Yeah, I don't remember anyone. Saying that name, that's a far
24:46
cry from Victor and Marcus. I mean, fine, whatever,
24:52
whatever. Nitpicking now because I'm
24:56
disappointed in this 4th movie I never knew existed.
25:01
Well, I got to tell you, David, played by Theo James, I kind of
25:08
liked his character. If we have to have a pretty boy,
25:11
like, who was it? Michael from the first movie?
25:15
Yeah, like, fine. If we have to have one, give me
25:20
someone as pretty as Theo James, but also make him a character
25:25
that matters to the story. Or or at least wants to matter.
25:29
He's he is a revolutionary. And you like those?
25:33
I I'm such a sucker for those, so I'm glad you picked up on the
25:37
main reason I ended up liking him.
25:40
He's idealistic. Yes.
25:43
It just feels like you you since age doesn't matter.
25:48
It's like, well, you could be 100 years old have gone through
25:53
all this. That's why you're still
25:55
idealistic because you've been through sometimes of change that
25:59
come out the other side. But here he feels like somehow
26:05
young vampire, but it's. Weird within the past 12 years
26:10
young. Yeah.
26:12
Like, he's definitely doesn't respect his elders.
26:16
He's got to be older than that because he knows about the death
26:19
dealers and he knows about the elders.
26:22
He knows the whole history of Celine's betrayal because he's,
26:29
you know, saying that it's hers. But I have to say, what really
26:32
got my attention, because we're still at the underpass, was that
26:36
I thought he was a reporter. And it wasn't until we get to
26:39
the sewers and he pulls that strange blade.
26:43
I'm slightly happy with the blade.
26:46
Oh yeah, it's very cool looking very good for the underworld
26:51
franchise where our super undead creatures always use
26:57
conventional weapons and his is this really awesome?
27:01
Almost like like a crap, I can't remember, brass knuckle style
27:09
sword. Like it wraps over the knuckles
27:11
of his hand, but it's still the blade.
27:14
It's just very cool. And then I was like, I don't
27:17
think he's a reporter. We don't, I don't think we'd
27:21
learn what he is if it's a, if there's any cover story because
27:25
we only see him go back to the coven and then here on the
27:29
street. And I don't think he has a cover
27:32
story. I think he imagines himself a
27:35
death dealer or whatever Celine was, and so he's just out on
27:39
patrol but at St. level because he doesn't know what he's doing.
27:46
Yeah, he's, I think he's a good inclusion and not a throwaway
27:51
character necessarily. I do think later on there's some
27:54
partner, yeah, there's some Matrix inspired shenanigans that
27:59
happened with him that oh. Man, I'm so glad you picked up.
28:03
On that because. I was like, we're back to the
28:05
matrix, right? So, so it's not like it's bad,
28:10
but the sewers even have this flashing light effect that I
28:14
just absolutely hate. I think the second or maybe just
28:19
the first one, sure the lighting was grey, but show me stuff.
28:23
Stop flickering. I can't I tell you anything can.
28:28
I tell you one of the reasons that I particularly noticed it,
28:34
I kept thinking back to a quiet place where whenever the
28:40
creature showed up, the lights would flicker.
28:43
But that's because it's an alien, and that's what aliens
28:46
do. They, I guess they mess with
28:48
electricity. What's the excuse for vampires
28:51
and werewolves? Why do the lights flicker when
28:53
they're around like. Don't know it's only in high
28:57
stress situations. Yes.
28:59
And so I think it's just like they were like, well, that's
29:02
cool in horror movies, like let's absolutely green lines.
29:06
I guess and up to this point, right before we introduced to
29:11
whoever Celine is apparently tunneling got tunneling vision
29:16
to subject #2. Subject 1.
29:20
Subject 2. We we have assumed that subject
29:26
to I have no idea. The subject 1 is Celine.
29:30
OK, so subject 2 is the one who helped her escape.
29:33
And you're right, we. We've been hearing bits and
29:36
pieces of the audio. Sometimes it sounds like
29:40
Michael, I would say, just like a manly breath noise.
29:44
Yeah. But we find out that it's a kid
29:48
that's 12 years old, surprised a child and Celine saves her and
29:57
they are going to take her to the dudes.
30:01
I'm sure exactly what they say because they eventually end up
30:04
in a chase and they have to go to the coven because the kid
30:07
gets injured. But the kid shows some powers.
30:12
It's So what I'm going to say to this part of the movies credit
30:18
is that it is very dynamic. It goes quite quickly from them
30:24
discovering that it's this little girl and not Michael, to
30:28
them running away from the rat style werewolves, which I also
30:34
thought was such a wonderful touch that is going to go away
30:37
after the car chase. But the fact that some lichens
30:41
are living rough, pun intended, I guess where they are, they
30:47
look more like rats than werewolves.
30:50
They're very skinny, very long. I was gonna complain about that
30:55
'cause they didn't look like wolves, I didn't consider them
30:58
looking more like rats. Yeah, I, I was like, oh, that's
31:03
a that's a good touch. My criticism of it is that we
31:07
later learned that that's essentially manufactured
31:10
poverty, which might also be like 1 of this movie's
31:14
accidental pieces of genius. But I don't think they intended
31:17
for that. It was a mistake that they made
31:22
anyway, so I was into that. I was like, all right, I'm.
31:27
I'm very good with these werewolves, and I'm very good
31:31
with the fact that they're immediately running away
31:33
stealing a van. I don't love that you can just
31:37
use a knife to hot wire a van. Yeah, but you?
31:44
Know whatever it's. Yes, exactly.
31:47
And it's quick and we're off to a car chase.
31:50
And minus the werewolves jumping on the cars and the cars barely
31:57
reacting, I think it's a pretty capable chase scene.
32:01
I love every time the van hits another car and it's such a
32:06
physical, real wreck. Like the first time they turn
32:10
onto the main road, they hit a car on its side and you see that
32:16
hole caved inside. And I'm like, wow, that's a
32:20
really good car accident. Like so I enjoyed that.
32:25
The cars themselves were fantastic in this car chase.
32:30
The CG werewolves kind of detracted from the entire thing
32:35
for me. Yeah, they like they end up
32:38
getting to the van and taking bites out of people, but all the
32:43
car helping. I feel like they were meant to
32:45
be more massive in the other movies and you'd Yep you'd see
32:50
damage from where they are and they can crawl on walls and
32:54
like. I mostly was expecting them to
32:57
be able to run as fast as a car instead of.
33:01
Which they absolutely should do. Right, so then tries to run over
33:07
Lucian in the first movie and he chases after the car at like 30
33:13
miles an hour. That's what I was going to say.
33:15
Like if a wolf can run at 30 to 40 mph, A werewolf can surely
33:22
run faster than that. And plus it's undead so it
33:25
doesn't worry about things like exhaustion, so it can keep a
33:29
faster pace anyway. And they're driving in the city,
33:31
like maybe they're getting up to 50 mph, but then they're right
33:36
in traffic again. So I don't think they're going
33:39
much faster than 30 or 40 mph. So yeah, it's crazy that these
33:45
werewolves need cars to jump on. And then like you mentioned, it
33:49
doesn't seem like they have a lot of weight.
33:52
Only the close-ups seem to bounce when a lichen gets on it,
33:57
whereas like the distant shots. There's one in particular I'm
34:02
thinking of where a werewolf jumps onto a car, it doesn't
34:06
react, and then a second later they start swerving and I'm
34:10
like, oh man, if they had done, if they had animated it so that
34:14
the swerving started right when the werewolf landed, I would
34:18
have believed it. But the werewolf lands and the
34:21
car is fine and then they start swerving and I'm like, you chose
34:26
to animate that? This is weird.
34:29
Maybe just a half a second closer or count maybe.
34:34
Maybe that's that's where I'm at on to.
34:37
That one do we find out that this is Celine's daughter in the
34:45
car? Yes, right after the fight,
34:49
'cause they're still driving, she has to trade seats with
34:52
David so David can drive and she can go to the back.
34:58
And then she bites the child and I'm sitting here like you just
35:02
watched this child RIP a a werewolf in half from the head
35:08
to the chest and now you're going to bite her wrist.
35:12
Like she looks pretty agitated. I imagine she can RIP you in
35:17
half as well. I've I've mostly been curious
35:21
because she like transforms into her hybrid self.
35:25
Like how much in 12 years does she know about her own status as
35:33
vampire werewolf? Because she's apparently a
35:37
hybrid, because this is Celine and Michael's daughter, which
35:43
she must have been pregnant before the the what you call it
35:52
freezing. But then you didn't get, You
35:57
didn't freeze the child or did you clone the child?
36:02
I yeah, I how? Would freezing her get you a kid
36:07
born in nine months or whatever? Yeah, because the child is 12,
36:13
we are in a 12 year time jump. Yeah.
36:19
And she's the one in the van who's like, do you know who I
36:23
am? And Celine's like, no.
36:25
And she's like, I'm your daughter.
36:26
I can't believe you don't know who I am.
36:29
There was even a guard who said, wow, this girl's gonna die, and
36:33
her mother next door will never know who she is.
36:36
And it's like, then why were you mad that she doesn't know who
36:38
you? Are I?
36:41
Yes. The beginning of this
36:43
relationship entanglement isn't very clean.
36:50
Like if you dig at it, it's not going to you're not going to
36:53
find much gold in that. Whoa, we thought this through.
36:57
I will say I enjoy. Is the racism of the whole
37:01
franchise by the? Way later when they do talk and
37:05
Celine gets to explain that she's she's not like upset.
37:10
She's just had her. I was going to say husband.
37:17
I don't know her, her dude, Michael with her.
37:23
They got knocked out and 12 years later she's meeting this
37:30
girl that has his eyes. And I was like that little
37:33
moment when we get to it at the coven is is nice.
37:36
I think it's it's a quiet moment that tries to earn more of the
37:45
resolution of this movie, so I appreciate it for that.
37:49
But the beginning is a little rough.
37:51
There's plenty of problems with how they're reacting to each
37:56
other. You know, I never was good with
38:03
the hybrid effect when she would Hulk out and go creature mode.
38:11
I just don't think it looks cool.
38:13
I like, I don't know, I guess that's the problem.
38:17
Yeah, Like the the eyes work for me.
38:21
I like the concept of having both the eyes, where werewolves
38:26
have this eclipsed moon as their eyes and the vampires have this
38:35
blazing whiteness and put together it looks almost like
38:41
the Ring of Fire. So that conceptually all of that
38:46
is great. The eyes, wonderful thumbs up.
38:50
You did something really cool and I I can appreciate that.
38:55
The blue face and the stretched features, those are a little
39:01
weird to me. And I get it.
39:03
You have to do something to account for lichens who change
39:07
into a full wolf unless they don't want to.
39:10
Yeah, no more advanced ones in this timeline.
39:15
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's it's just in, you know, of all of their
39:21
effects. I get it.
39:22
You have to combine werewolves and vampires.
39:24
And vampires look like humans. They just have fangs and
39:28
contacts, whereas werewolves have a full CG body that they
39:33
have to deal with. So what are you going to do when
39:39
you combine both of them? So it's a tricky place to to go.
39:44
I just didn't love Subject 2's creature look anytime.
39:51
Her name is something. It's Eve, but I object Eve.
39:57
I don't think they ever said her name.
40:00
OK, I was like, I don't know that I tears her name.
40:06
Yeah, the Internet tells me it's Eve, and maybe the credits told
40:10
me it was Eve, but the movie told me it was subject to.
40:14
She told me it was subject to. Yeah.
40:17
After 12 years, what's your name of that?
40:19
Yeah, Yeah. Well, let we we keep jumping to
40:23
the middle slash end of the coven.
40:27
Let's let's go to the yeah. 'Cause we get Charles dance, we
40:31
get a puzzle door that opens yet somehow likens get through it.
40:37
Yeah. And then we get AI don't know
40:43
what would you what would you call it?
40:44
A more these spectrums of revolutionaries, one that just
40:50
wants to keep hiding until it blows over and the other one
40:53
that wants to force it to be over, which it's a easy conflict
41:01
to make. And I think they both play their
41:03
sides well. Charles dances less, wanting to
41:09
have anything to do with the hybrid people and vampire Theo.
41:17
He's he's ready to stop living underground or whatever, but
41:27
vampires are still sensitive to sunlight.
41:29
What are they supposed to do? Yeah.
41:33
I, I have to say that this coven feels more Anne Rice than any of
41:44
the vampires we've had in the Underworld franchise.
41:48
Now with Anne Rice, I've only read two of her books, Interview
41:52
with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned, or at least the books
41:55
that those movies were based on. And I think I watched one more
42:00
of the of her movies or, you know, movies based on her books.
42:06
And she's one of my favorite modern vampire writers because
42:11
while she is bringing in her own lore, she is respectful of what
42:16
came before. But you get these very
42:19
complicated and emotional vampires and you get conflict
42:24
between vampires that are rooted in those emotions and not
42:28
necessarily in power grabs. And so where is the first couple
42:33
of movies were all about how petty the vampires are now with
42:38
Charles Dance and his son David, who's actor I've already
42:43
forgotten Theo James with these two actors playing off of each
42:50
other, we've get we've got this conflict that's rooted in the
42:55
reality that we live in now. And so I like, for the first
43:00
time in this franchise, I liked watching the vampires.
43:05
I was like, this is dope, this is great.
43:09
Yeah, first. First one wasn't great.
43:12
Second one. Yeah, third one.
43:16
What even happened in the third one?
43:18
Oh, that's Lucian's story. Yeah.
43:21
Oh yeah, I can. I can agree to that.
43:26
Doesn't help my rating but. It does help mine.
43:33
I'm mad that the lichens get into this coven place after.
43:38
I'm mad at something more petty than that.
43:41
Oh, OK, you go. I'm mad that they have
43:44
conventional munitions because I don't know if anybody told this
43:50
to the vampires, but silver bullets work on lichens and
43:55
humans. It's crazy.
44:00
Bullets. Yes.
44:02
You only need to carry one type, yeah.
44:04
Turns out just the fact that they are bullets make them work.
44:10
That's funny. So I was just like, why do you
44:13
even have to switch? Never carry conventional
44:17
munitions. I know that I was surprised
44:21
because I didn't expect lichens. I know they were chasing them in
44:25
the car, but it was the antigen people that were looking for the
44:30
girls. So I second viewing easier to
44:35
pick up on the what how it had to be because the twist in the
44:43
third act, these lichens are all coming from the antigen people.
44:49
So that's why lichens show up, because they want her back?
44:54
That was confusing. I was expecting humans, then
44:57
they switched to silver bullets. First viewing it was shocking
45:03
and kind of irritating because I was like, why are there not only
45:09
lichens but massive healthy ones When you just showed me these
45:14
rat like diseased ones and you told me that that's the lichen
45:19
like I so first viewing I was so angry about it.
45:24
Second viewing I was like, you know what?
45:27
Now that I know what's coming like this really is a good
45:30
surprise for our characters to be like.
45:34
They don't know. You've been waiting for humans
45:37
and it's werewolves that are coming through that door.
45:39
So second viewing, I'm a little bit better with it, but I still
45:44
will say from an audience perspective, it's it's it, it,
45:48
it feels like the movie keeps lying to us and it's going to
45:51
continue to do. That Yeah, Yep.
45:56
So I guess in this act, the the women or I guess she's 12.
46:04
So the the women and young women, yeah, the girl, they do
46:11
get their little family moment, which I said earlier I enjoyed
46:15
and I feel like it helps the their plot move along and.
46:21
I'll, I'll second everything that you said earlier just to
46:25
just to bring it back and point out that for this movie, the
46:30
mother daughter scene might be the best scene in the movie.
46:34
They they really did make a pretty genuine and good scene.
46:39
Because it it makes sense from both of them and that's why it
46:43
was rough earlier. And here we're like, OK, we
46:46
understand each other and we're going to try and protect each
46:50
other. It's like, yes, excellent.
46:52
This is a wonderful surprise daughter resolution.
47:00
Yeah, and I'm I'm glad we don't have a typical angsty teen who's
47:04
just going to hate her allies for no reason.
47:08
So 2nd to that, the timeline problems get me upset because
47:16
not timeline in the movie necessarily, but vampire Theo
47:23
says I'd heard about death dealers and they how does he say
47:33
it? Something about that they were
47:37
inspiring essentially. I'm glad that there's still one
47:41
that exists or something like that.
47:43
And. Yeah, it's something really
47:45
petty. Lying it's the same thing with
47:47
the the medic that they have sees her, the kids eyes when
47:52
they when she feeds and it's like they do exist.
47:56
And it's like what you guys know, Celine and you know
48:01
Michael, I assume by association and you thought that.
48:06
Charles Dance does, right? He was like, he knew exactly who
48:10
Michael was. So why didn't the doctor?
48:12
Yeah. So it's a bit, it's a bit like
48:16
your audience. Guess what?
48:17
It's it's credible. These people didn't know they
48:20
exist. So we got to tell you about them
48:22
or death dealers. We haven't really had any reason
48:26
to mention death dealers because that's what Celine was in the
48:30
first movie, which seemed like she was the only one which it's
48:35
just the job of killing lycans. I it felt like that dealer was
48:41
supposed to be like Blade. You are specific killing
48:48
machine, but everybody else also has guns, so lycans can be
48:52
killed by anybody. And frequently they just send
48:57
everybody to do, you know, the the military jobs.
49:01
Like at the beginning of the movie, if there were death
49:04
dealers, there were three of them because Celine had two
49:07
people come with her. Oh, yeah.
49:08
But both of them get killed right away.
49:12
Yep. So the callback again just feels
49:16
like an audience. Remember this cool thing?
49:18
Remember she's here. And that makes it cool.
49:21
Like OK. Were you here for the original?
49:24
Well, we remember the original. They finally they finally tell
49:31
us that Celine has hybrid blood with Michael Kor Venus.
49:37
And after the battle, we got to get to the Matrix because that's
49:42
where it pays off. Well, I don't want to skip the
49:45
Super cool CGI whip that I enjoy for 15 seconds and then we never
49:51
see again. What I'm going to say to the
49:54
whips credit, no he never does. But this franchise inadvertently
50:01
has shown us how stupid the whip is as a weapon of war.
50:07
Because in the first movie we had the double whipped guy who
50:11
got his whips stuck and then was immediately killed by a lichen.
50:17
And the only other whip dude we saw was in the third movie, the
50:21
prequel movie. And that wasn't used for battle,
50:24
that was used for torture. And now we've got another dude
50:28
and he does some cool thing to the first lichen he finds.
50:32
Then he wraps up the next lichen.
50:34
Then he's throwing his blade, but he forgets that wrapping up
50:38
a lichen isn't enough to kill them.
50:40
Like the dude can still move, and he certainly does and
50:43
immediately tackles him. So like Whip didn't do anything.
50:49
The whole fight yes, the vampires are supposed to lose.
50:54
We find out that vampire Mr. Dance trades out the girl
51:00
because something gets knocked out by a giant werewolf that can
51:04
heal. I I do think it's it's like
51:11
everything in a movie. You want to imagine that it's an
51:14
intentional choice WSO for CGI because she fights the giant
51:21
werewolf and stabs it and breaks off a piece of the sword and.
51:26
Just silver sword. Sure, silver.
51:30
Maybe it's regular metal because silver metal doesn't help if you
51:33
fight humans or I don't know, same problem.
51:37
No, they they grab their silver by that point.
51:41
I'm only pointing it out because of who this giant werewolf turns
51:45
out to be. She snapped it and essentially I
51:49
imagine that leaves that bit of the blade in his body and it
51:53
heals over like it. Yeah, it just.
51:56
Swallows it, yeah. In the end part, the healing up
52:00
also happens and so it feels like that's a nod to the future
52:04
of oh she knows that he heals and she can just leave pieces in
52:09
and like oh, the first time I she.
52:12
Can leave things there like a little bank.
52:15
I guess, yeah, but she. It made me angry.
52:23
It still makes me angry. Like OK, for the plot ahead, it
52:29
turns out that this particular lichen has been getting
52:33
inoculated against silver so that he can survive silver
52:37
attacks. This is our first hint towards
52:40
that. But when he reverts there is
52:43
going to be a 5 foot long blade that's going to be condensed
52:49
down to his normal 6 foot body. Like even if he's not allergic
52:54
to the silver, he is allergic to sharp in his organs.
53:00
That part still bugs me. I'm like, why is there no
53:05
consequence? Because I guess it's a fantasy
53:10
movie, trying to think if there's anything else special
53:16
about this part of the ACT. Because it's just first act, she
53:21
escapes, child escapes, they go to a coven and learn more about
53:26
her hybridness. Second act, we get fights and
53:31
Theo dies in the fight. Celine manages to resurrect him
53:36
and she's got a head out to rescue the kid.
53:40
So those are the, those are the three acts.
53:46
I mean, yeah, that's, I will agree with you that the revival
53:52
of David played by Theo James, since we're going to go back and
53:56
forth between David and Theo. His name?
54:01
His revival OK, we'll we'll just say it Celine comes in she has
54:07
an argument with Charles Dance because Charles Dance is
54:11
brilliant he sells the entire thing it's such a weak script
54:15
and he's. So.
54:16
Good with it and you know in their argument he makes a point
54:23
about how because of her his son is dead and and I I can't
54:28
remember. I don't think it was here that
54:30
she talks about Cor Venus. I think it was way earlier while
54:34
the child subject to was asleep that she was talking about Cor
54:39
Venus but she cuts open David's stomach and cuts her hand and
54:44
then pulls a neo and reaches in to pump his heart again.
54:50
And I guess because her blood touched his heart, he's now a
54:54
hybrid maybe. So it's in the places that I was
54:58
trying to figure it out. It's because she had like the
55:04
immortal blood from that second movie.
55:07
She's got the original core Venus strain.
55:11
Clear if that makes him a hybrid because she's she's not a
55:16
werewolf, but our. Third act assault happens in
55:20
broad daylight. Someone says that at one point
55:25
they're like, she's out in the day.
55:28
So for David to show up at all means that he had to, you know,
55:34
leave the dam, go into the city and get into this building all
55:40
in broad daylight. So I think he's also a hybrid.
55:45
Of sorts. Hybrid Vampire immortal blood,
55:50
so the sunlight. So essentially they get the
55:53
immunity to their weakness that the werewolves want.
55:58
Yeah, he's, he's got Celine's version of hybrid, Yeah, where
56:03
he's just a day Walker. Like that's, that's all that
56:07
changed for Celine. That's all that's going to
56:09
change for David. How are we going to do blade?
56:11
I really hope we do. I genuinely hope we do every
56:14
time. I've called Celine a day Walker
56:16
since the second movie. I've always thought of Blade.
56:20
So yes, I of course want to do the Blade drilling.
56:23
To watch the first one, but that's about it.
56:26
It's a great one, I know. I've watched all three of them
56:29
and I think it's similar. Well, I don't want to speak to
56:33
it. I don't want to speak to it
56:33
because we're going to watch it one day, so.
56:37
Yeah. Anyway, I'm contending and the
56:41
audience can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think David is now
56:45
a day Walker hybrid just like Celine.
56:48
Yeah, I can go with that because he has the beat to get there in
56:52
the daylight. Yep.
56:54
And I think Subject 2 is a three-part hybrid because she
57:00
has Celine's blood. And we now I'm now I'm thinking
57:06
about it where I'm like, the timeline gets all screwy when we
57:09
think about Subject 2. How did she get incubated and
57:13
how did she get born? I don't understand.
57:17
In the Covent scene they point out that she didn't have
57:20
original bite marks so they they made her into a hybrid through
57:26
injections. So was she just someone else's
57:30
child that they started shooting up or is she a product of like,
57:37
I don't know, is she a test tube baby?
57:39
Right. And if so, why would she need
57:41
the injections like? Yeah, yeah.
57:47
I mean as a thing that I've thought of not related to that,
57:51
but throughout this whole bit I've enjoyed that her her main
57:56
prop. Like I guess in the video games
58:01
Laura Croft has pistols that she holds 2 handed her machine gun
58:07
pistols are back. They kept held on to those for
58:12
her. I had a revelation at least I
58:16
this is my head cannon. I have no idea if this is real.
58:19
She's using at the beginning the guards regular ass pistols, but
58:25
she's firing it like it's one of her machine gun pistols.
58:29
I think that's vampire speed. I think they're saying that she
58:33
is pulling the trigger that fast, that it sounds like a
58:36
machine gun to us. Maybe sure cuz otherwise my head
58:41
can't. How does she get the guns that
58:43
she's had forever? How does she have every gun she
58:47
touch turn into a machine gun? She's got the video game
58:50
backpack where they're just, they're just in.
58:53
Your inventory just ready? Yep, ready to be equipped.
58:58
But I my head cannon says that any gun that she touches, she
59:02
can pull the trigger so fast that it will become a machine
59:06
gun to our eyes and ears. But movie never said that
59:12
explicitly. I just had to point that out.
59:16
Yeah. Anything else from the second
59:19
act that that sticks out to you? Because I want to get to the
59:22
infiltration so bad. Nope, nothing.
59:26
The little girl is captured. The bad guys antigen are
59:32
wrapping up their plan. And, you know, deliver it to the
59:39
audience. They even have an evil master
59:43
meeting where a regular human employee walks in to start
59:48
yelling at them. Yes.
59:50
Yeah, it's a bad, bad day to pick the wrong meeting, but.
59:55
The lady. I think that specific side
59:57
character, she had concern for the kid and was being a good
1:00:04
human. As good as any of the humans
1:00:09
could be, but definitely an innocent and she had survived
1:00:14
all the way to the third act when we get our main twist.
1:00:17
And this is where the twist is revealed, because Oh no, the
1:00:22
antigen is run by lichens, and Celine even meets with the cop
1:00:26
and the cop tells us Oh no, lichens keep getting released.
1:00:31
Then why into the streets is the guards not turn in?
1:00:36
Like why were they not? Until the very end.
1:00:41
Yeah. Yeah, that's I I can't explain
1:00:46
away why it's human guards at the beginning and werewolf
1:00:49
guards at the end. Yeah, that's also part of the
1:00:54
dumb. Yep, part of our fun.
1:00:56
Like as soon as I start thinking about the plot of this movie I
1:01:01
get so angry and how hand WAVY they are, especially here.
1:01:07
But then when I turn off my brain and I say oh shiny lights
1:01:11
and lots of guns and explosions. It is satisfying and it is fun
1:01:17
and I'm so glad that we finally have a movie in this franchise
1:01:22
where the vampires are the good guys and the lichens are the bad
1:01:26
guys. Yep.
1:01:29
Lichens. Took us 4 movies to get there,
1:01:31
yeah. I think when you realize that
1:01:36
it's, it's quite something because we want to root for
1:01:41
Celine and them and we finally get to maybe then the next movie
1:01:46
will go back to them being bad guys, yeah.
1:01:48
Yeah, they'll be like the vampires were actually in charge
1:01:52
of the whole government. But we get back in the The
1:01:57
flashing lights are here at this office building again.
1:01:59
But at least she gets to do like a elevator matrix explosion set
1:02:04
up. I was just about to say the
1:02:06
elevator explosion might be one of the coolest things in this
1:02:11
movie. And it's it's just a big set up
1:02:14
to 1 Big Bang. And I was like, yes, double
1:02:17
thumbs up. So cool.
1:02:18
And then the and then the elevators are out of service.
1:02:22
And is that plot point like it was?
1:02:26
Why did you pull them up in the first place?
1:02:30
It doesn't. Make sense?
1:02:31
It's cool because the bombs themselves have silver dust.
1:02:36
So it wasn't. Necessarily to take out the
1:02:38
elevator, it was because the elevator is at a central
1:02:42
location and it goes on every floor.
1:02:45
If you're going to spread your silver dust everywhere, do it in
1:02:51
this most central location. So it's not to stop the elevator
1:02:55
from working, although it does turn off the elevator.
1:02:58
It's mostly for the CG sparkles that we see from here on out to.
1:03:04
Keep the lichens away while she's trying to escape, I guess.
1:03:07
Yeah, 'cause there's only one lichen who has been inoculated
1:03:11
against silver. The rest of them start burning.
1:03:15
And his inoculation is not going to work.
1:03:18
Don't tell them yet, I'm. Like oh man, it just is so full
1:03:27
of holes. OK, there was 1 bad part that
1:03:35
made me laugh so hard. So as she's, you know, going
1:03:41
through the facility, things don't pick up in the story again
1:03:46
until we get to the parking garage.
1:03:48
But there's still a lot of action happening.
1:03:50
Yeah, and at one point she gets in these air ducts and because
1:03:54
she can't reach her butt, she can't reload her gun.
1:03:59
So she has to, you know, use a grenade and you get the silver
1:04:02
dust to kill the the lichen. But as soon as she jumps down
1:04:06
and lands, she touches the guns behind her butt and they're
1:04:10
reloaded again. Click click.
1:04:12
It worked. Yeah, like if she can't reach
1:04:16
her butt then the guns stay unloaded.
1:04:20
I guess that's I do think I did see a close up of her guns in
1:04:26
this third act and they look like the ones that are her
1:04:29
special ones. So I think she's managed to
1:04:32
secure them. Maybe the antigen people were
1:04:35
nice and just had all of her effects in a bag.
1:04:39
She just had to find them. Yep, somewhere they were just,
1:04:42
they were tucked off in the elevator in a secret latch.
1:04:46
We didn't get to see that part, but don't worry, while she was
1:04:48
going up the elevator, she she did a couple of side missions
1:04:51
because this is very much a video game as a movie.
1:04:54
Yeah, yeah, parking garage. I do think it's a lot of fun,
1:05:04
crazy spicy action like let's cut and bleed and everybody gets
1:05:08
super gross. For some reason the doctor
1:05:13
werewolf doesn't fully transform.
1:05:15
He goes to this like mid transform.
1:05:18
So sequence like looking in, I can't remember if somebody gets
1:05:22
decapitated by Theo because he shows up with the shotgun.
1:05:27
Yep. And I think Selena is mostly
1:05:33
just getting just beat up by the giant werewolf.
1:05:37
She's just gonna throw us around.
1:05:40
You should count how many times she gets thrown on a wall into
1:05:42
this movie. Like.
1:05:44
Oh yeah, she is bodied as particularly in this last fight,
1:05:49
but throughout the movie, any almost any encounter with a
1:05:53
lichen ends up with her getting thrown against a wall at some
1:05:57
point. I thought briefly that the guy
1:06:02
playing the Super lichen, I thought he kind of looked like
1:06:07
the lead singer of Coldplay. Yes, A. 100%.
1:06:13
I'm sitting here thinking, like, what's with this franchise
1:06:16
hiring actors who look like the lead singer of a band, right?
1:06:20
Exactly, we'll see what the final movie if they pick someone
1:06:24
from Yeah 2015 or. Something are they gonna?
1:06:27
I mean, I'm sure they're gonna bring back Scott Stapp from
1:06:30
Creed, but we won't have the lead singer of Coldplay anymore.
1:06:35
So what are we gonna get as our new lead singer?
1:06:39
The final fatality between the two of them, so the doctor gets
1:06:45
some I. Was gonna say there are two
1:06:47
great fatalities. Mortal Kombat type stuff with
1:06:52
him getting just ripped apart and he can't speak anymore but
1:06:56
she gets to Zing in with one of the things that he said to her
1:07:00
and that one was very it's fine, very underworld gruesome. 10 out
1:07:05
of 10. Good job.
1:07:06
Yes, 10 out of 10 to RIP out a throat, spine included.
1:07:11
Yeah, like, it was so gruesome, so Mortal Kombat, so memorable,
1:07:18
that this middling fight scene with an unearned villain was
1:07:23
made a million times better with that gruesome death.
1:07:27
So yes, agreed. 10 out of 10. Wonderful death, very
1:07:31
underworld. Yeah.
1:07:32
Very great. Just loved it.
1:07:37
Contrasted with I guess the only play that Celine had to herself
1:07:43
was to slash open another dude's upper stomach, lower chest and
1:07:52
she punches in a silver grenade there, which is something that
1:07:59
the inoculation couldn't handle because he he heals instantly so
1:08:05
the grenade gets stuck in there, his insides don't heal instantly
1:08:09
or they are vulnerable to silver.
1:08:12
I don't understand. Well, I don't know if it's
1:08:15
necessarily that it's the like the silver does eventually take
1:08:20
over and create that body horror towards the end, but I think the
1:08:24
explosion itself is what killed him.
1:08:26
Because he goes from this panicked look, then he
1:08:29
transforms to werewolf and he goes to another panicked look.
1:08:33
And then the explosion happens and he has this dumbfounded
1:08:39
responseless face and his arms go limp.
1:08:43
And then seconds later the silver starts to spread
1:08:45
throughout the whole body and we get the body horror.
1:08:48
So I'll agree with you on the the final body horror part.
1:08:54
I guess exploded silver is enough to kill someone who's.
1:09:00
Yeah. He's supposed that's weird to
1:09:02
die. He's supposed to die, so he has
1:09:05
to die. That's.
1:09:07
About it, I loved the imagery of it.
1:09:10
I genuinely did like so for me yes kind of dumb but 8 out of 10
1:09:19
like setup doesn't work for me as well but payoff did.
1:09:24
Like I was absolutely giving thumbs up to the explosion and
1:09:29
the body horror. Yeah.
1:09:31
So essentially that ends that set of like in threat to the
1:09:38
group, but they they still have to get away.
1:09:43
Yeah, but you know, just like with real life corporations, all
1:09:49
you have to do is kill like the main guy and then the whole
1:09:52
corporation never exists again. Like.
1:09:56
This this company that has major government contracts throughout
1:10:01
whatever country it is in is just going to die overnight
1:10:06
because the main scientist is gone.
1:10:08
Yep. Yep, and the secret dude that he
1:10:11
was testing and inoculating. Yeah, he's gone too.
1:10:17
And that's all we needed to get rid of, to kill the whole
1:10:20
organization. Just forget all about the
1:10:23
investors and all the other werewolves we had in that, you
1:10:26
know, bad guy meeting. They don't exist.
1:10:28
They're they're fine. At some point in this third act,
1:10:32
Celine comes across Michael also upside down because hybrids.
1:10:37
I feel like hybrids should be sideways or something, or
1:10:40
diagonal. I was fine with an upside down
1:10:44
Celine because maybe antigen knows that that's how vampires
1:10:49
sleep. I I don't know how they would
1:10:51
know that, but fine. Maybe he's not a vampires.
1:10:54
I have to check. He is upside down.
1:10:56
He is 100% upside down and it doesn't make a lick of sense.
1:11:01
Why is Michael upside down? That why?
1:11:07
I was trying to give it the benefit of the doubt because I
1:11:09
was like I. Don't know he is upside down and
1:11:14
I agree it doesn't make sense. He should either be stored
1:11:18
standing up or sideways. It makes zero sense.
1:11:22
There is no space saving that you are gaining from putting him
1:11:27
upside down. Or with a vampire.
1:11:29
Vampires are sometimes upside down, but why everyone?
1:11:34
Why is everyone stored upside down?
1:11:38
Yeah, he is there. She shoots a hole in it so he
1:11:45
can defrost and then he takes off.
1:11:50
No particular reason other than we are at the end of the movie
1:11:54
and well. Hey, Subject 2 can connect with
1:11:57
him too but Celine can't unfortunately.
1:12:02
Like he signed up for a cameo's worth of of screen time and.
1:12:09
I genuinely wonder if it's really him, like it's got to be
1:12:12
him because that's new footage at the beginning it.
1:12:15
Kind of looks like not. Yeah, like when we get to the
1:12:20
yeah, a lot of shots just kind of look uncanny valley.
1:12:24
But I don't know, maybe, maybe it's the quality of the
1:12:27
television I'm watching on. Like I don't.
1:12:30
It just doesn't feel like it was really the actor and I don't
1:12:33
even see his name in the main cast.
1:12:37
Trivia Scott Speedman confirmed in an interview that he would
1:12:41
not be reprising his role for this film.
1:12:44
A stand in with his facial likeness superimposed via CGI
1:12:47
portrayed his character from a distance.
1:12:50
There it is. Oh, that's fantastic.
1:12:54
Oh, wow. So neither of us knew that
1:12:57
coming in. Neither of us had looked into
1:12:59
it. And both of us are like, that
1:13:01
doesn't seem right. Yeah.
1:13:04
I could see, you know, I don't have the time to film, so here
1:13:08
we're going to cameo you. Nope, not doing any of that.
1:13:14
Yep. Movie's over.
1:13:17
We made it. Yep, I loved that Scott Speedman
1:13:23
Michael Corvin was not in the movie in any major capacity.
1:13:30
It's turning out that the less Michael, the more I like the
1:13:33
movie. But did you like the third
1:13:38
movie? I don't remember.
1:13:42
I, I rated it the same as the I think the second movie.
1:13:47
Well, I can't even pull it up. I gave it and the second movie a
1:13:50
three, and my main beef was the fact that this franchise had
1:13:54
promised itself to be so lore intensive and then they just
1:13:58
kept changing it. But if there were any movie that
1:14:02
I would change the rating for, it would be Rise of the Lichens.
1:14:06
I would probably raise it up to a four.
1:14:08
In retrospect, not not a huge change, but I do think that I
1:14:13
would be more willing to watch that movie than the second movie
1:14:18
again. Yeah.
1:14:20
Yeah, So you, dear listener, I'm not going to change the rating
1:14:24
in the spreadsheet. The averages are going to have
1:14:27
the original rating, but you can know that I kind of regret my
1:14:31
original rating. But OK, before we get to
1:14:37
ratings, there is one song and one song only in this movie.
1:14:41
The rest is all original compositions for the movie.
1:14:45
And the one song is during the end credits, and it's a song by
1:14:50
Evanescence, and it certainly sounds like a song by
1:14:54
Evanescence. I don't know that if I listen to
1:14:57
the credits, I I did feel like part of what made that heart
1:15:03
pump more matrixy was the song overlay that after it's like
1:15:07
drums and rock, it's it works as the same as the matrix.
1:15:16
You enjoyed that Evanescence song or just?
1:15:20
No, I'm not a big Evanescence fan.
1:15:22
I used to love them in high school, but by the time this
1:15:28
movie would have come out, which I didn't see until last week, I
1:15:33
already had stopped liking Evanescence.
1:15:35
So I probably would have liked the movie less in 2012 if I had
1:15:41
watched it, because I would have been like, why are they still
1:15:44
playing Evanescence? They're so like 2003, man.
1:15:48
They're done. But I'm not upset by it.
1:15:53
Like I was like, Yep, that is an Evanescence song.
1:15:56
You can definitely tell what Evanescence sounds like.
1:16:01
Yeah, yeah, I did not, I don't, I did not watch the credits to
1:16:06
get that or see if there's any after credits.
1:16:11
None. I did watch it so I can confirm
1:16:15
none. Nothing was there.
1:16:18
Yeah, this one maybe wasn't as painful as I was expecting.
1:16:25
I'm, I'm willing to go with you there, but for any new listeners
1:16:30
here in the 4th movie of this particular franchise, we do
1:16:35
ratings, not grades. The primary difference is where
1:16:37
you find the average in a grade. You say the seven out of 10 is
1:16:41
the average and so you raise up all the other scores so that a
1:16:46
lower scoring thing gets closer to what the average would be.
1:16:50
But for us, we say in a 10 point scale, 5 is the middle and so 5
1:16:55
should be the average. So if you hear us call one of
1:16:58
the movies that you love A5 out of 10, that's not us saying it's
1:17:02
a bad movie and saying for us it was an average movie.
1:17:06
If we go below A5, we probably thought it was kind of bad.
1:17:09
If we went above A5, we thought it was pretty good.
1:17:11
So with that said, Justin, on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you
1:17:17
give 2012's Underworld Awakening?
1:17:21
There's two things that I like about it and that's pretty close
1:17:28
to my score. I it was.
1:17:33
There's just so many annoying things that that don't really
1:17:42
none of them are very endearing because it's still vampires and
1:17:47
werewolves. It's it's still a story of them
1:17:50
struggling. That's why it's like, oh, they
1:17:52
added humans, but eventually just becomes another werewolf
1:17:55
vampire conflict, which that is, that is their jam.
1:18:00
That is what they are doing so successfully twisted on their
1:18:07
plot side. Trying justify it to myself
1:18:11
because I'm stuck between 2:00 and 3:00 because it's just not a
1:18:17
great movie. Now I can see it it jiving well
1:18:23
with the greens and whites of the Matrix and the pale greys
1:18:28
and whites of the Matrix in 2012.
1:18:31
I can't when the last Matrix came out.
1:18:34
That era, I think it was like O6 or O8 like maybe.
1:18:38
I don't think it was. I think Revolutions was pretty
1:18:40
close to Reloaded. So it had to be like in the
1:18:43
early odds, right? Like maybe, I don't know.
1:18:49
We'll just have to get to that franchise.
1:18:51
Yeah, I'm just going to stick with three because 2 feels so
1:18:57
low. I don't and I don't actively
1:19:01
want to never watch AC and I just probably won't.
1:19:05
There's some really good for underworld gore, blood,
1:19:09
costumes, makeup, fight, action, stunts, all that is great.
1:19:16
I want more I guess. What more do I want?
1:19:22
I don't love the lichens story which is the conflict.
1:19:28
I do enjoy the mother daughter bonding.
1:19:34
I also enjoy that Michael's not anywhere because Celine deserves
1:19:40
a movie, but she can't get a movie out to herself because you
1:19:44
need a whole cast. But we'll stick with three.
1:19:52
I, OK, I have kind of a metaphor.
1:19:57
Like a million years ago, I used to be a solo musician.
1:20:03
I, I would write songs and play them.
1:20:05
I even recorded a couple of things.
1:20:08
I'm not proud of the work that I did.
1:20:09
So that's the reason I, I've never really shared it with
1:20:12
anyone, but it does exist out there.
1:20:16
It's just not something that I usually think about except while
1:20:21
watching this movie. It kind of reminded me of, I
1:20:25
don't even remember what song it was, but there was this one song
1:20:28
that I wrote. That all of my friends enjoyed
1:20:32
and they would sing along and they had a lot of fun with it.
1:20:36
They never reacted that way to any of the other songs that I
1:20:39
wrote. And I, I vaguely remember one of
1:20:45
them saying like, because he was kind of a jerk, but at the same
1:20:48
time he was honest and I appreciated that He was like, I
1:20:51
don't really like your music, but I get what you're doing with
1:20:55
this song. And I think that's why people
1:20:57
are vibing with it because it's your Best Song.
1:21:02
And I feel that way about this movie where I feel like the
1:21:06
first three I have not enjoyed even a little bit.
1:21:12
And then this 4th 1 came so out of the blue it just shocked me.
1:21:20
It felt almost like a totally different franchise, except that
1:21:23
we were still dealing with vampires and lichens.
1:21:27
And I was like, wow, like this really is a dramatic improvement
1:21:33
on what has come before, except it's still bad.
1:21:39
Like it is the best that they've given us to me, but it's still
1:21:44
dumb and it's still got parts that just don't make any sense.
1:21:50
And it's what they decided to go with.
1:21:52
It's what they they said was the best idea.
1:21:57
There are threads that go nowhere.
1:21:59
There are characters that go nowhere.
1:22:02
There are ideas that are set up with no payoff.
1:22:06
And so I have to say it's not a good movie, but compared to the
1:22:14
three that I have suffered through before, it's the best so
1:22:18
far. So for me, I'm at a 5 out of 10
1:22:22
and I would watch it again. I'm I'm firmly putting my foot
1:22:27
down. Underworld Awakening to me is
1:22:30
the best one we've had. Five out of 10.
1:22:33
That gives us a show average of four out of 10, which is right
1:22:37
in the middle. Not the lowest, not the highest.
1:22:43
Yeah, I think I I just I drive with the with the Moody
1:22:51
moodiness of the first one. This one is very action Y gosh,
1:22:57
I just hate so much of what's happening in it flashing light
1:23:02
I'm. Genuinely glad that we had
1:23:05
different scores again, like we're not one point away from
1:23:09
each other as we have been with this whole franchise.
1:23:14
I, I don't, I mean, I think the first one just holds a little
1:23:18
bit as nostalgia. We have to.
1:23:20
We have to get some franchises that are completely new.
1:23:24
Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's this one
1:23:30
definitely reeks of 2000s to 20 tens where everything was very
1:23:38
video gamey, almost felt like it had a shine of Polish put on it.
1:23:44
So even the dark and broody movies still kind of seem shiny
1:23:48
at times. And this movie is guilty of
1:23:53
being the same. I did not vibe so much with the
1:23:58
moodiness of the very first movie, but I did vibe with the
1:24:04
story. I felt like it was a a pretty
1:24:07
well put together story of vampires versus lichens, but
1:24:11
surprised the vampires are actually the baddies.
1:24:15
I thought that was OK. And then I was just so
1:24:19
pleasantly surprised to have a movie where the lichens were the
1:24:23
baddies. I was like, sweet, that's cool.
1:24:28
Get to be actually the bad guys that the vampires always knew
1:24:31
they were. Yeah, they've been promising
1:24:35
this for so many movies and that yet they kept delivering, you
1:24:41
know, great lichens that we wanted to care about.
1:24:46
Now they're like, no, they're the bad guys.
1:24:49
They're the government. All right.
1:24:54
Well, our final movie in the franchise is going to happen in
1:24:58
four years with Underworld Blood Wars.
1:25:03
And it appears just from, well, I don't know anything about it.
1:25:10
I'm just going to say it's got a smaller budget and a smaller
1:25:14
writing team than the previous movie, and I don't know what
1:25:19
that means. We'll have to watch it and see
1:25:21
what we think of it. I will try and go in with no
1:25:26
bias because we'll see if we get another body double for Michael.
1:25:34
I feel like he's supposed to be the tease of oh, he escaped, we
1:25:37
must go find him. He's going.
1:25:40
To be a big deal in the next movie, we promise.
1:25:43
Are we sure? Are we sure about that?
1:25:45
Yeah. Do we know?
1:25:47
Do we know that he's going to be there?
1:25:50
Yeah, we'll just have to find out.
1:25:52
And again, for both of us, it's going to be a completely new
1:25:56
movie. So please, no spoilers in the
1:25:58
comments. And if you're sitting there
1:26:00
saying what comments, well, you can engage with us on the
1:26:04
platform you are currently listening to us on with either a
1:26:07
rating, a review, a comment, or even better than all of that and
1:26:13
not spoiling anything, sharing. You can share it with your
1:26:16
friends, families, lovers, whoever you want to share it
1:26:20
with. You know, help us spread the
1:26:22
word, get the podcast out there. If this is your first time
1:26:27
listening it, we would love it if you hit that follow or
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1:26:34
And then come back next week with us and you can find our
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I completely forgot the name of that platform, which is
1:26:46
hilarious. And then finally, you're going
1:26:49
to e-mail us at potato chip pictures pod at Gmail dot.
1:26:53
Com. And we will, of course,
1:26:56
eventually read those emails when we get to them.
1:27:02
Next week is Underworld Blood Wars, so until the next full
1:27:06
moon, goodbye. See ya.
1:27:23
I think I said until the next full moon last time.
1:27:27
Oh, I don't recall. Yeah, I should write down an
1:27:32
ending for these franchises so that I have at least one thing
1:27:37
prepared, I guess. Maybe I shall always.
1:27:41
I have my notes and then I have trying to recollect if I enjoyed
1:27:47
the movie. I don't think I enjoyed much
1:27:50
about this one. It's there's some things that
1:27:53
were fun, dumb fun. And it, yeah, it felt like a
1:28:00
shiny dark action movie that the bad guys, good guys happened to
1:28:06
be an empires and lichens like the world that essentially
1:28:11
killed all of those creatures off.
1:28:12
But we're going to have one more fight about them.
1:28:17
And they're still going to have a blood feud.
1:28:20
They'll never get over it. They're always going to hate
1:28:23
each other. It is unget overable.
1:28:26
Yep, even when the whole world is against them and they're on
1:28:30
the verge of extinction, they're still going to fight each other.