Underworld Awakening (2012)

Once again, Beckinsale brings an impressive physicality and subzero cool to her portrayal of Selene.

Not quite in the class of the first film, Underworld 4 is still the most enlightened girl-power film of the week, nosing out Gina Carano's "Haywire" by the length of Pinocchio's proboscis.

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. Allegedly in 3-D, though I didn't notice at the time.

Why are they fighting again? Never you mind. Just sit tight till the next action sequence (it won't be long), and get ready to laugh - with equal parts scorn and fanboy joy - as Beckinsale strikes another Rodinesque pose under a slo-mo shower of inhuman innards.

Anyway, "Children of Men" this ain't, though the inert directing of Len Wiseman (who helmed the first two films and has a producer credit here) has thankfully been replaced by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, who seem to have a lot more verve and even some visual whimsy.