Ostensibly serious, writer/director Len Wiseman's Underworld series is, to borrow from its choice terminology, a lycanthropic, hemo-sexual piffle whose true nature - its own meta-textual underworld - is comprised of silly characters motivated by an even sillier storyline. What rescues it from the shame of mediocrity is its consistently stylized and graphic art direction, which makes its vampire and werewolf hoo-hah halfway believable and fun. Even if it's a toothless effort, at least it looks the part, and on that level I enjoyed the charade.

Underworld: Evolution is essentially a continuation of the 2003 original, picking up mere moments after the end. Incase we've forgotten where we left off, a generous supply of flashbacks keeps us apprised. Selene (Kate Beckinsale), the disillusioned Vampire "Death Dealer," has joined ranks with Michael (Scott Speedman), a newly inaugurated Lycan, to uncover a legacy of deception within the Vampire clan and depose its leader, Viktor (Bill Nighy). Michael is a new breed of Lycan - a hybrid - whose mystery and seemingly limitless power is the titular evolution this film pretends to be concerned with. Unfortunately, it is never explored - perhaps as a cheap ploy to drag this ludicrous plot out to a third feature. Instead, another layer of back-story is revealed once Marcus (Tony Curran), a Vampire elder with the distinction of being the first and the ugliest, awakens from his slumber to retrieve his brother William, held captive by the Vampires for being the first and strongest Lycan. Meanwhile, observing this unholy reunion from his hideout is their father, Corvinus, played by the venerable Derek Jacobi with more integrity than the character is worth. He amounts to little more than the sort of limp and irresponsible parent that is afraid or unwilling to discipline his children no matter how awful they behave. This would be fine had this been purposeful, but his contribution to the story, as with Marcus and William's, arrives stillborn. (I briefly toyed with the idea that Corvinus represented a God concerned for, but reluctant to interfere in, the lives of His creations, but I'm not as generous or as cash-strapped as Jacobi.) By the end, there was not one single aspect of the plot or its characters I cared about.

So what did I watch in place of this purportedly compelling saga about warring bloodlines that some argue is an allegory for racial politics and identity? Evolution, like the original, anchors each of its plot points on violent, brassy, logic-defying action sequences that are largely successful and from which its entertainment is single-handedly derived. To this effect, Evolution is more elaborate than its predecessor in its scope and staging, book-ended by equally impressive scenes (what this film does with a helicopter toward the end is deliciously gruesome). It is also noticeably bloodier than the first, or for that matter most films I've come upon, to the point where its orgiastic abundance is almost eroticized - like porn for gorehounds. Seeing so much of it so often quickly desensitized me, though; the recent film Cache proved far more lastingly unsettling with its singular act of bloodshed than the geysers of blood here. (However, I did find the unintentionally offensive "mind-rape" scenes - penetrations of both body and mind - almost unbearably cruel.) The point of the action here is comic book-style fun, though, which it gleefully delivers. But after a year when Sin City and Batman Begins gave us both gritty and meaningful quality, a gussied-up Evolution just doesn't cut it.

(Underworld: Evolution is currently playing at the Crystal Palace 8 Cinemas, located at 499 Paul St. in Dieppe.)