Vampires. Werewolves. I can only say I would like to shake the hand of the Hollywood executive who had the creative genius to put a “vs.” between “vampires” and “werewolves.”

However, turning this brilliant idea into a movie proves to be more difficult than perhaps was first envisioned. Either that or director Len Wiseman spent his film school days pretending he was Tim Burton when he should have been studying.

First a little information: vampires and werewolves have been at war for centuries. The vampires have become indulgent and passive under the shoddy leadership of their appointed figurehead, Kraven. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is one of the few vampires to retain her wits and an insatiable bloodlust for Lycans (a fancy word for werewolves).

Selene finds that the Lycan clan is after a human named Michael (Scott Speedman), but why remains a mystery. In fact, the secret is such a mystery that it becomes one of the film’s major points of suspense, although a weak one. Selene takes Michael under her wing, but only in order to find out why the Lycans want him.

Meanwhile, the Lycans, led by Lucian, a powerful werewolf thought to have been destroyed centuries ago, pursue Michael with less than fruitful results. Eventually, Selene comes to find that her own leader, Kraven, is in cahoots with Lucian. Through all of this, Michael maintains a look of desperate confusion, along with just about everyone in the theater.

Fearing a darker, more sinister plot, Selene awakens the ancient vampire leader, Viktor. Aside from being irritated with Kraven’s lack of leadership, Viktor is determined to put an end to Lucian once and for all. Why the two hate each other is another “less-than-juicy” suspense point.

Amidst these many mangled plot twists, there are countless scenes of gunplay in the sewers. So many, in fact, that after a while they feel like filler spliced in during the editing process just to get the film’s running time up to 90 minutes.

When the film finally reaches its climax, the many minutes of sitting seem to have been in vain. The few scenes that seemed to foreshadow a fantastic, final showdown are forgotten, and the audience remains transfixed, most likely trying to figure out how the infinite loose ends will be tied up.

After Michael has transformed into a vampire, then a werewolf, then a vampire-werewolf, he fights Viktor. This is followed by — you guessed it — more gunplay in the sewers. Even though the final fight appeared to be the best sewer gunfight of the film, the audience had seen enough sewer gunfights to inspire them to take to the sewers too.

As though this just wasn’t enough, the film shamelessly leaves the door wide open for a sequel, a practice that Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” has made notorious. The second film has probably already been made using footage from the floor of the first one’s cutting room.

Were Kate Beckinsale a better actress, maybe this movie would have been tolerable. She is cast as a scowling, stone-faced vixen with not the slightest hint of emotion, except for an onscreen kiss, which only seems to intensify the viewer’s confusion. The many times the audience could have been treated to vampire/werewolf throw-downs, they were instead treated to Beckinsale’s heaping helping of girl power and perfect marksmanship.

Furthermore, there is no true hand-to-hand combat between the Lycans and the Vampires. The Vampires were able to encase liquid silver nitrate in their bullets, while the Lycans were able to encase (you guessed it) liquid ultraviolet light in their bullets. Let’s face it: putting ultraviolet light inside bullets is about as easy as putting a Democrat in the White House in 2004. It just won’t happen.

To put it bluntly, if you hear, “My Vampire ogre punch causes seven points’ damage to your Naarvinnian Tree Elf,” on a weekly basis, then this is the movie for you. On the other hand, if you don’t go around telling people to call you Lord Gabriel, and your screen name has never been of Victorian origin, then you had better steer clear of this film.

It is films like these that make movie patrons fear for the future of Hollywood. These works will one day be held in the same light as literature, which we don’t realize now simply because the concept of a movie is still relatively new.

So in 500 years, when someone decides to rent 2003’s “Underworld”, I’ll use every bit of divine intervention I can muster to inspire a reading of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” instead.

Grade: D