Underworld

Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Shane Brolly
UK Certificate: 18

Imagine Romeo & Juliet, with the feuding Montagues and Capulets recast as vampires and werewolves, and you've just about got a handle on this intriguing action/horror film from former music video director Len Wiseman.
Beckinsale, shucking her girl-next-door image, is Selene, a vampire warrior with a thing for skin tight leather catsuits and big guns. She's part of the Death Dealers, an elite group of aristocratic blood suckers sworn to destroy the Lycans, a werewolf street gang, with whom they've warred for centuries. Selene's all-consuming hatred for those of a wolfish persuasion is thrown into doubt, however, when she falls for Michael (Speedman), a human medical student who gets bitten by a Lycan and starts to transform into one of her avowed enemies.
Like Blade before it, this is an MTV-style take on the horror genre, full of CGI-enhanced battle scenes, implausible plot twists and a depressingly attractive young cast. Style over substance? Maybe, but also slick, sexy and enormous fun.