Over the years there have been many attempts to describe two of filmdom's favorite monsters, vampires and werewolves, as members of underground societies rather than freak, individual marauders. Such has been the case in such films as "John Carpenter's Vampires," "Queen of the Damned," "An American Werewolf in Paris" and "The Howling."

In the latest attempt to update this concept and the vampire/werewolf legend, "Underworld," we learn that not only are both groups of fiends organized, but that a secret war has been raging between them for centuries.

As the film opens, one of the vampire "death dealers" Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is hunting down what we're told are the last of the Lycans (short for lycanthropes, namely, werewolves), who apparently haven't fared all that well in the war. Aside from killing a bunch of them, Selene finds it curious that the Lycans were trailing a human, Michael (Scott Speedman) since humans are considered nothing but food by both sides. As it turns out, the main Lycan, Lucian (Danny McBride), who is supposed to have been killed six centuries earlier, has been conspiring with the main vamp, Craven, who is in charge of the clan while the master vampire, Vincent (Bill Nighy) is taking a few century's coffin nap, to turn Michael into a vamp/wolf hybrid since his ancestors were responsible for creating both monster lines in the first place. Why they're doing this isn't really clear, anymore than the fact that after all that time only Selene suspects that something's going on. So she wakes up Vincent to ask him, which throws a giant monkey wrench into everybody's plans, including his. While waiting for Vincent to gain back his strength, Selene falls in love with Michael, even though he was once human, but is now a lycan since Lucian bit him while trying to escape.

Meanwhile, the war rages on. But the warring factions don't attack each other with fangs and claws, as one might expect. Instead, they shoot each other with automatic weapons that fire bullets that explode with ultra-violet light or liquid silver nitrate depending on who's firing them. And while gunfights seem totally out of place in a film about a class struggle between vampires and werewolves, it really isn't, since if not for the fact that some of the vampires occasionally bare their teeth and some of the lycans occasionally change into werewolves, it would be easy to forget that either side was made up of monsters at all. But since all the vamps can do is leap off buildings without getting hurt and not all the lycans can change at will, everyone just shoot everybody else in an endless string of gun battles.

Dark, moody, muddled, and mostly confusing, "Underworld" paints a confining portrait of the immortal world that seems like it would be much more comfortable in a video arcade than the theater screen. But the film doesn't just suffer from a lot of pointless violence supporting an overly complicated plot. The main problem with "Underworld" is that it doesn't know exactly what it wants to be. It tries desperately to be a "Matrix" style action film while making a stab at being a "Blade" style horror movie at the same time. And while the action is slick and seamless, the noisy gunfights become tedious after awhile, and since none of the characters are exactly easy to identify with, it becomes increasingly difficult to care which side wins.

Kate Beckinsale makes a good accounting for herself as the relentless lycan hunter, Selene. Her moves are stylish, and she looks great in skintight leather. But neither is enough to carry or save the film as a whole. And she doesn't get a lot of help from Scott Speedman as Michael, who only manages to remain totally clueless throughout the entire film, all the way to the eye-on-a-sequel ending.

It isn't really that "Underworld" is a bad film. It isn't. It just isn't remarkable since all director Len Wiseman packs into it are things that have already been seen and done before in everything from "Resident Evil" and "X-Men 2" to "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Or maybe it's that the material is so tired and overdone that there's just no way to get a fresh spin on it. One way or the other, "Underworld" is a misfired attempt to roast an old chestnut that just won't cook.