Ultraviolet Review [2]

Posted by Cris Murphy on 03.07.2006

It should have been called, “Bodies On the Floor”…



Milla Jovovich .... Violet
Cameron Bright .... Six
Nick Chinlund .... Daxus
William Fichtner .... Garth
Sebastien Andrieu .... Nerva
Ida Martin .... Young Violet
Clay Cullen .... Rebel Hemophage

Written & directed by Kurt Wimmer

Coming Soon…
Stay Alive: A horror film that will leave geeks around the globe looking over their shoulder…for something that sucks.
The Omen: Another remake of another horror flick. The first Omen film was too good for them to remake it into something that'll suck. Suck will be a theme for this review.
Little Man: The Wayans decide to do something even worse than White Chicks…and that's hard to do. Suckage on this will nearly collapse the universe.
Silent Hill: The only horror film that actually peaks my interest. Then I remember that it's a video game flick, and all hopes for this film go straight down the drain.

Our Feature Presentation…
Set in a futuristic world, disease has become the new fear. An ancient virus cultivated by the military has evolved and escaped into the general population. People everywhere were developing large canines, getting really strong and fast, and feeling plenty of pain. The government's new Ministry of Health became Gestapo-like, and, led by its narcissistic leader Vice-Cardinal Daxus, rounded up these "hemophages", put them into concentration camps, and eventually exterminated most of them.

A small band of rebels have been fighting the system and for their lives to survive not only the government, but their disease. By the way, if you didn't notice, the disease turns people into vampires. Yes, vampires. When you realize this…and by the way, you won't know this until nearly a third of the way through the film…you start to understand the intense feeling of suckage that will ensue.

Enter our heroine, Violet. She was a pregnant nurse who was exposed to the hemophage virus and was forced to terminate her pregnancy. She escaped and joined the rebel forces, and quickly became their most potent assassin. She enters our little story by infiltrating the Ministry of Health facility to acquire the Ministry's new weapon that, if rumors are to be believe, could kill the rest of the hemophages instantly. She passes through an intensive set of tests to determine if she is a human or not, somehow passes undetected, and gets the weapon just as her cover is blown. Much fighting ensues.

She escapes and takes the weapon to her gang of rebels, led by the foreign Nerva. However, before she hands Nerva the weapon, she finds out that it's a boy. Don't ask. You might understand once, or if, you see it. Refusing to let the boy die, Violet escapes with the boy, named Six, and is being chased by both the government and her own people. Even more fighting ensues.

After taking Six to her scientist guru, Garth, Violet finds out two important things about Six: 1) he isn't a weapon to kill vampires, he's a weapon to kill humans, and 2) he'll be dying in 8 hours. She seeks out Daxus to get the cure that will keep Six dying and save humanity. Then, there's a hologram, a merry-go-round and what seems to be a fatal gut-shot wound to Violet. In the end, Six is dead and Garth somehow…offscreen…hijacks a quarantine unit, sweeps Violet away undetected, and saves her life. Jordi LaForge would be proud.

Violet decides to take on Daxus and the entire Ministry's military force to save Six (don't ask why he's still alive, you wouldn't believe it) and even, perhaps herself. A whole lotta kung-fu gun fighting ensues. There's even flaming swords. And when I say flaming swords, I mean swords that catch fire by striking them to the ground like and match or touching a sword that is also flaming. I guess in the future, metal is flammable. I blame the viruses.

To say that Ultraviolet sucks would be an insult to vacuum cleaners. However, the magnitude that the film sucks makes this film one that comes along only once in a generation. There are films like Manos, the Hand of Fate, Psycho from Texas, and My Bloody Valentine. Then, there's the pathetic poetry that Kurt Wimmer designs in this film.

The story doesn't really convince me why being a super-strong, super-fast vampire is all that bad. You never really see them feed or needing to feed on blood. Sure, you'll need a larger toothbrush, but, for all intensive purposes, you're just better than everyone else. Then there's the fact that it took me nearly a third of the movie to realize that the hemophage disease turns people into vampires. The rest of the story is plagued by the Jordi LaForge Syndrome. From those of you who aren't hip to "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Jordi was the Chief Engineer of Enterprise who came up with nearly impossible answers, usually with sub-space particles he created out of his ass, to solve the problem just in time. I counted at least 5 times where Violet does something beyond logic, only to have someone on screen ask how in hell she did what she did…followed by someone giving an even more impossible reason or explanation. Don't even ask what a "gravity leveler" is.

The dialogue is so horrible, it's comical. Phrases like "there's a war to the death…" (What other wars are there? To the pain?) are quite common. Let me give you the crown jewel of dialogue for your enjoyment:

Garth: Why won't you let anybody in?
Violet: Because these moments, however beautiful, are evil when they're done.

It's poetry so pitiful, it's like drowning in a tub of water. It's shallow, but deep enough to kill you.

Then, there's the action sequences, which likes to combine gun fighting with kung-fu in a way that makes you think that anyone can easily kill 20 guys. The fights usually end up with Violet taking one swipe with her katana/machete and killing 10 guys in one swipe. In one scene, she manages to kill 20 guys without stabbing or shooting anyone. Exploiting the fact that her enemies shoot worse than cross-eyed Stormtroopers, she uses the 5 moves in Dodgeball (dodge, duck, dip, dive & dodge) to not only make the other guys miss, but to shoot each other in the process. And just like every fight scene in the film, it ends with a crane shot straight up, with Milla in squatting kung-fu pose, into a wide shot of all the bodies on the floor. In fact, they should have just called the film "Bodies On the Floor." But props to Wimmer for bringing back the Acme Portable Hole as a major part of the film. You have to see it to understand what that means (and have a healthy knowledge of Road Runner cartoons).

The acting is as wooden as it comes. Milla Jovovich gives a performance that makes you think she's the love child of Keanu Reeves and Al Gore. Cameron Bright's face must have been plastered solid throughout principle photography because it never really moved during the entire film. You really can't fault Nick Chinlund in his role as Daxus. It's hard to be bad when you have nose-clip filters covering up your nostrils.

If you have seen the movie's trailer and thought that the film might actually look cool, think again. All the decent special effects in the film were used in the trailer. The rest of the special effects budget was spent buying an Amiga and MS Paint. I've seen high school students make more realistic special effects. Often, they were clunky, very pixilated, and often confusing. In some instances, you weren't quite sure what the hell was happening or if something was a building or a hay stack. Overall, this film isn't winning the Oscar for Best Special Effects.

Kurt Wimmers tries so hard to create a film that looks cool, even if it isn't, and fails so miserably. He crafts a film so bad, it's like looking at a car crash. It's so gloriously awful that it should be taught in film schools across the nation on what NOT to do in a film. I've never seen a film try so hard and be so serious, yet fail so horribly on every level. That's why I'm recommending you should go out and see it for yourselves. Despite Hollywood's constant barrage of bad films, something like this…something with the level of suckage so high, it makes Mount Everest look up and say, "Ah, crap!"…doesn't come along very often. Ultraviolet will be the film that makes you appreciate the crap you got now.

The 411: Ultraviolet is a film that comes along only once in a generation. The acting is about as bad as it gets. The special effects are so outrageously bad, you wonder if someone actually got paid to do it. The story is so ridden with holes and lack of logic, it makes you think your next door neighbor stayed up all night on a crack binge and decided to become a screenwriter. In essence, Ultraviolet is a spectacular failure that you must witness first-hand. One cannot grasp the level of suckage of this film unless you go see it for yourselves. I’m telling you this so you know…and knowing is half the battle. Yo, Joe!

Final Score:  -10.0   [  ]