|
| Ultraviolet (2006) |
|
  (4/10)
|
Runtime: 94 |
| Public Rating: 6.50 (2 votes) |
Director: Kurt Wimmer |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Science Fiction/Action |
Year: 2006 |
| Writer(s): Kurt Wimmer |
| Distributor: Sony Pictures |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
| |
When a movie studio passes up a press screening, it’s usually a sign that studio execs assume they have a flop on their hands. By bypassing the press, the studio hopes to cash in opening weekend, and then try to cash in a second time three months down the line with the inevitable DVD release. Case in point, Ultraviolet, Kurt Wimmer’s (Equilibrium) latest effort, a science fiction/horror/action film. Thanks, or rather no thanks, to an incoherent storyline, sub-par performances, shoddy special effects, and repetitive, difficult-to-follow action scenes, Ultraviolet has next to nothing going for it. It’s so bad that even non-discriminating genre fans will find themselves hard pressed to sit through Utraviolet’s 90-minute running time.
Ultraviolet is set in the late 21st century, more than a decade after a super-virus has escaped from a government-funded lab, causing a worldwide plague. The infected, Hemophages, exhibit all the classic symptoms of vampirism, fangs, super strength, super agility, and the need for blood to subsist. The virus inevitably kills its victims, but only gradually, over years or decades. The uninfected have put in place draconian laws and protocols to guard against the spread of infection. Hemophages are hunted down and eliminated. The authoritarian society seems structured along the lines of the Roman Catholic Church, minus a pope (he must be away on holiday). Instead, this repressive society is led by Vice-Cardinal Daxus (Nick Chinlund), an obsessive-compulsive, ruthless dictator prone to wearing immaculate white gloves.
Enter Violet Song jat Shariff (Milla Jovovich), a highly trained, highly skilled assassin working with the Hemophage underground. Pretending to be a courier, she slips through the defenses of a government ministry/laboratory. Forced to undergo a battery of tests to prove her “humanity,” Violet manages to get in and pick up the package, a gleaming white suitcase. She doesn’t get far, though, before the vice-cardinal’s men discover her true identity (the real courier arrives moments before Violet is set to exit the building), forcing Violet to fight her way out against dozens of armed soldiers. She gets out, of course, but not without leaving a trail of broken bodies in her wake.
Repeatedly told not to open the package, Violet can’t contain her curiosity. She opens the suitcase moments before meeting her contacts in the underground led by Nerva (Sebastien Andrieu), only to find that the case contains a young boy, Six (Cameron Bright), in suspended animation. Discovering that her contacts plan on eliminating the boy (supposedly because his body holds the key to destroying the Hemophages), Violet’s maternal instincts kick into gear (cue running gun battle with her former allies turned foes). Violet flees to the sanctuary run by another Hemophage, Garth (William Fichtner). Meanwhile Daxus and Nerva are hot on Violet’s trail, sending waves of heavily armed men her way.
Unfortunately, Ultraviolet is a mess from the first frame to the last scene. The clumsy opening narration sets the tone for everything that follows, “Hi. My name is Violet. And I was born in a world you may not understand.” From there, we get a guerrilla attack on a secret government facility. The guerillas arrive in black spheres (they emerge wielding samurai swords). The attack fails. Cue a long expository flashback filling us in on key details (setting, immediate history, etc.), including details about Violet’s life, pre-infection. Ultraviolet then introduces Daxus and an assistant. The clunky exposition continues with dialogue that begins with, “As you know…” In other words, the characters are talking about matters they already know about, making their conversation meaningless except for moviegoers peering into the screen.
Moving on to Violet’s infiltration of the same government facility, we get plenty of CGI eye candy (e.g., the facility is designed around the biohazard symbol borrowed from the Resident Evil films). Coolness points for Violet’s weapons, which she materialize out of thin air. Thanks to another thingamajig, Violet can also control gravity within a limited area, allowing her to walk and run on ceilings, the better to take out Daxus’ soldiers. Moments later, Violet rides her motorcycle across the futuristic city’s main thoroughfares before riding straight up an office building (where a confrontation with a helicopter gunship awaits). Cool enough on one level, but less so due to the sloppy, often murky special effects that make Violet look like a cardboard cut-out.
Story wise, Ultraviolet is highly derivative. Wimmer borrows story elements and plot points liberally from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, The Matrix trilogy, Blade, The Transporter, Resident Evil, Richard Matheson's seminal science-fiction/horror novel, I Am Legend, even John Cassavates’ Gloria. Next to Wimmer’s previous effort, Equilibrium (a straight-to-DVD effort that’s garnered an enthusiastic following among genre fans) looks like a near masterpiece, or at least a model of coherent storytelling. For Equilibrium, Wimmer borrowed shamelessly lifted well-known ideas from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.
For Ultraviolet, Wimmer upped the action quotient, mixing in swordfights and a hybrid form of gunplay and martial arts called "gun-kata." Unfortunately, upping the number and intensity of action scenes means nothing without a sense of urgency or risk to the characters involved. Violet never loses or even suffers minor injury, even when she’s up against dozens of well-armed, trained soldiers. And with bloodless, PG-13 violence, the secondary characters fall to the ground without even the smallest hint of physical harm. The action scenes quickly become repetitive and tiresome, all too often relying on cheap looking, heavily processed CGI to “enhance” individual scenes.
With an emphasis on action over story or character, Ultraviolet has little else to offer, unless you happen to be a fan of Milla Jovovich and her awkward line readings. Wimmer obviously didn't try very hard, dialogue wise. Actually, he didn’t try at all. The dialogue ranges from the risible (e.g., the aforementioned opening lines) to the execrable (e.g., "It is on." "Yeah it is.") at the climax. And while Wimmer tries to wring emotion from Violet’s relationship with Six, it’s so underwritten that no one will care whether Six lives or dies (the same could be said for every other character, major or minor, in Ultraviolet).
To be fair (or more accurately, to be generous), Wimmer was forced to cut more than thirty minutes from Ultraviolet at the studios direction, but it's hard to imagine how additional material could salvage a film this uniformly execrable (the unrated edition contains an extra seven minutes of footage). Ultimately, Ultraviolet feels like a videogame where the gamer doesn't get a chance to play, but just watch someone else play, or a comic book adaptation that panders to the stereotypes the general public has of comic books and their lack of sophistication.
© Mel Valentin, May 20th August, 2006
|
 Printable Version
|
* Available Subtitles: English, French
* Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
* Commentary by actress Milla Jovovich
* "UV Protection: Making Ultraviolet" featurette
* Unrated, Extended Cut features 7 minutes of footage unseen in theaters
|
Do you agree/disagree with this review of Ultraviolet (2006)? Let your opinions be heard in our forum.
|
Buy the Poster of Ultraviolet (2006) (Click Here)
|
|
|
|
