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his filmmaking career, director Kurt Wimmer has
been pretty unlucky. His films have something to
say, but have suffered from bad fortune in the
process of conception to realisation. His 2002
sci-fi piece "Equilibrium"
(in my opinion a very innovative movie with
brilliant action and a strong message) was
released during the frenzy created by the "Matrix"
sequels, and so went largely unnoticed. His latest
film "Ultraviolet" creates a similarly
bleak vision of the future, however this time
suffers not from an unfortunate release date, but
rather from Milla Jovovich's bad acting and
over-involvement from a controlling studio.
Set in the late 21st century,
"Ultraviolet" paints a picture of a
society torn by a war between hemophages (read:
vampires) and humans. These hemophages are
basically humans that have been infected with a
virus created by the government to administer some
sort of bizarre population control. People who
become hemophage are hunted down by said
government and either taken to concentration
camp-like facilities for extermination or killed
on-site. Eventually, the hemophages start to fight
back, and a full-on war is waged.
The movie focuses on Violet
(Milla Jovovich, "Resident
Evil"), a hemophage who takes it upon
herself to protect a human child (Cameron Bright,
"Godsend")
that has the potential to rid the world of all
hemophages due to a unique antigen in his blood.
If you would believe it, "Ultraviolet"
gets even more confusing from here on in. There
are several plot twists and the film meanders, and
the true intensions of any of the main characters
are never shown.
The worst thing about this,
however, is that it does not seem deliberate on
the part of Wimmer (who also scripted). If
anything, it seems as if Wimmer had written
himself into a corner, and so just gave the
vaguest ending possible in the hopes that the
viewers could figure it out for themselves. It's
not entirely hard to figure out some of the story,
however "Ultraviolet" sets up some
pretty big questions and answers them only with
gaping plot holes. Suffice to say, the script is
rather lacklustre.
The premise of
"Ultraviolet" is fairly original and
intriguing, but the execution is poor, filled with
chunky dialog and abysmal voice-over from
Jovovich's character. On top of that, the style of
subtle philosophy that was present in
"Equilibrium" is completely lost in
"Ultraviolet". If the movie has anything
to say at all, it has already been said a thousand
times before in movies such as "Blade",
"The
Breed", and "X-Men 3". A lack
of originality would have been forgivable if
Wimmer had at least tried to embellish his themes;
instead, he just left them buried underneath a
mound of subplots and unrealistic action
sequences.
And that's another area where
"Ultraviolet" falls flat: the action.
Not that the action is bad, but although it
expands on the very original and incredibly cool
notion of the "Gun-Kata" presented in
"Equilibrium", it is just taken to a
ridiculously unfeasible level here. Milla Jovovich
manages to break more or less every single
physical convention upon which modern science is
built in the first ten minutes alone. I accept
that "Ultraviolet" is not rooted in
reality, but it is ridiculous to expect an
audience to believe that one woman can stand in
the centre of a circle of twenty men all firing
guns at her and survive by doing nothing more than
back flips. And if I never have to see another
bullet-time effect again, I can die a happy man.
The acting in
"Ultraviolet" is similarly bad. The only
decent actor is young Cameron Bright, who plays
human child/vampire Six. The rest of the cast
falters, as if their ability to do the fight
sequences came before their ability to deliver
lines and emote. As an all-action heroin, Milla
Jovovich is great, but as an actress, she is
sub-par at best.
Yet, I can't help but feel
that it was the fault of the studio that
"Ultraviolet" turned out as badly as it
did. Apparently the studio cut close to 30 minutes
from Kurt Wimmer's original, no doubt to shorten
the philosophy and plot and put more focus on the
action. Perhaps if this footage was restored in a
director's cut, "Ultraviolet" would be a
very different and better movie. Then again, with
obvious script and acting problems already too big
to be ignored, maybe 30 minutes of extra footage
would only hinder "Ultraviolet".
Although not a bad movie per se,
"Ultraviolet" fails to fulfil its
potential, and whatever merits it may have are
reduced to ludicrous, kick-ass action and Milla
Jovovich in a skin-tight costume.
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