Underworld: Awakening 2012

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Of all the movies whose makers designate them as crap by not screening them in advance for critics, forcing me to go to a multiplex in vampire hours and write a review in a sour overnight stupor, Underworld Awakening is one of the best. Read more

Andy Webster, New York Times: The combat quotient, to the movie's credit, is way up, with narrative folderol kept to a minimum. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Watching the film is strangely like looking at the same three still frames of supernatural battles over and over for 90 minutes. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: The most generic entry of the bunch. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Kate Beckinsale's "Selene" remains one-note, but it's a wildly entertaining note. Read more

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: More aggressively violent and thankfully less mythology-driven than previous installments, Underworld: Awakening is strictly for the converted. Read more

Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times: A brisk creature-feature that ditches the series' dreary mythology in favor of a more direct, action-oriented approach. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: [The] latest, dreadful entry in the vampires-battling-werewolves franchise. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: There's not much to this movie beyond a slick procession of dark, gleaming violence. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: Crude, cheap and pointless, this surely drives a stake through the heart of the 'Underworld' franchise. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Beckinsale's Selene is back with a vengeance, that famous black catsuit and two fully cocked pistols, having wisely sat out the wretched third installment of the franchise. Don't expect much more than this. Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: Once again, Beckinsale brings an impressive physicality and subzero cool to her portrayal of Selene. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: The entire production is single-mindedly, earnestly devoted to serving up feats of BADASS, and it succeeds in this devotion to the exclusion of everything else. Read more