January 2012 is Kate Beckinsale month. Unofficially. But the beautiful actress has two films coming out back-to-back – who does she think she is, Steven Spielberg? – and that’s more than enough reason for us to celebrate her talents. We’ll have plenty on Contraband as its release date approaches. And for Underworld enthusiasts, we just added 9 new images to our gallery of Underworld: Awakening shots. Here are a few (click on each one to see it full size), but you can see the rest by clicking right here:







The official plot synopsis for Awakening, the latest installment in the long-running Underworld series, finds Selene (Beckinsale) in the middle of a war between humans, vampires and Lycans. Basically, mankind has uncovered the identity of the supernatural beasts, and now is waging war to try and eradicate them from the face of our planet.

But really, all Beckinsale fans need to know is that she’s wearing the black leather, and she’s brandishing hand cannons (see Photo No. 1, above). I do like that flamethrower-wielding psychopath who has Selene pinned in the third picture. Maybe the humans won’t be such pushovers in this sequel, and the vamps and werewolves will have an actual fight on their hands.

We’ll see. Awakening co-stars Stephen Rea, Michael Ealy, Theo James, India Eisley, and Charles Dance. Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein direct the sequel, which will be available in 2D and 3D beginning on Jan. 20.