Ultraviolet Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)March 5th, 2006
Ultraviolet
reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 1 out of 4
Director: Kurt Wimmer
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, William Fichtner Screenplay: Kurt Wimmer
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (sequences of violent action throughout, partial nudity and language)
Ultraviolet reminds me of a bad techno song: an electronic, neon pounding, continues on and on and on and on, pounding and pounding, boom bada bada bada boom bada bada boom, until it lulls itself into a tinny silence, with annoying symbol sounds and electronic squeaks, attempting to raise a quiet anticipation in its listener, only to revert back to an equally floor-vibrating/migraine-inducing pounding that continues on in its tireless repetition for what seems to be, well, let's face it, an eternity.
For those familiar with Writer/Director Kurt Wimmer's earlier work--Equilibrium in particular--Ultraviolet will be no surprise; it'll just be a sad digression. Wimmer takes what made Equilibrium an indie hit, gives it a slippery coating of neon paint, sheds away any depth of character, and exponentially raises the body count while lowering the MPAA rating to PG-13. He then rolls this film out onto a pastel filter, wads it up and throws this piece of anime-fanboy trash our way.
The two films' premises are essentially the same: big evil totalitarian government against little rebel with not-so-little powers. Equilibrium spiced this equation up with a nice turn of philosophy, where Ultraviolet instead opts to give its rebels pointy teeth and call them vampires. Milla Jovovich plays the heroine this time, prancing around in skin-tight spandex and expelling endless sprays of bullets. Her name is Violet, but since she's obviously "ultra", we all like to call her Ultraviolet. In the dictator's role is Nick Chinlund as Daxus. The little boy caught between the sides is Six, played by the insidious little actor Cameron Bright. The details of the story are superfluous, since its only purpose is to work as a clothesline for the film's countless fight sequences. Suffice it to say that Violet has to protect Six. Why doesn't really matter. The film doesn't slow down enough for anybody to care. And when it does finally put the bullets on hold, like a bad techno song, the lull is rife with annoying little electronic squeaks of pathos. It's all really very silly.
But in a film where plot doesn't matter-think last year's Ong Bak-our enjoyment is contingent upon the film's successful execution of its main event. For Ultraviolet, its featured talent is its combat. But maybe I was blinded by the neon glare, but I just wasn't that impressed. Out of the dozen-plus action sequences, only a couple kept me from checking the time on my wristwatch. In fact, much of my wristwatch's action gave me more excitement than Ultraviolet's mass-murder, but maybe because the hands on my watch ticked away the time until I could depart from Wimmer's pastel unreality. What's worse, the two action sequences that fingered past my glazed-over eyes were straight out of Equilibrium. Oh, Wimmer...
The fault in these action sequences is that Wimmer chose to not fix what wasn't broken with Equilibrium. Problem is, critics and audiences alike forgave Wimmer's low-budget methods from Equilibrium because, you guessed it, Wimmer had a low budget. But Wimmer was given $30 million for Ultraviolet; easily enough to abandon the cheap camera tricks of Equilibrium. But instead, Wimmer ate away at the $30 million with his effects-heavy reality. Reality, however, is a generous word for Ultraviolet's setting. Violet's opening lines of narration read "You may not understand my world". This is very true, but for the sole reason that the CGI effects are so scrappy that it's nearly impossible to actually believe in their transition to celluloid. Somebody must have noticed how bad Ultraviolet looked. And this person should have done the right thing and shredded it all to pieces. It'd be one less comic book knock-off for us to wade through.
-www.samseescinema.com
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