Underworld: Awakening (2012)

My wife loves the “Underworld” flicks, she thinks Kate Beckinsale as bad ass vampire assassin Selene who kicks ass in a slick tight black jumpsuit is a hoot. That’s true, but “Awakening,” the fourth pitch in the creaky vampires-and-werewolves-live-among-us action series is so short on story and reason to exist, it’s painful. Here Selene –- centuries old and still sporting hair and skin only a salon can provide -– is iced for 12 years, wakes up in a  badly lit lab run by an icky corporation that must share a set with the “Resident Evil” films, slices though a busload of men, hunts for her lover (Scott Speedman) who is starring in a better film, and tries to protect her new tween-scream daughter. It’s all set in a dark Orwellian world where all the survivors pimp “GQ” threads, the lighting –- inside and out, night or day -- is all black-blue, and “The Matrix” is the only film ever made. This is a cheat on every level, an extended trailer with 1,999 shots of Beckinsale standing in front of a massive fan just off camera, her black leather slicker blowing righteously so. D+