Reviews

It's been a long, long time since I've seen a movie so bad, so mind-numbingly terrible, that I no longer have the mental capacity to form words to describe how awful it is. Ultraviolet just may be the worst movie I've ever seen. I will try to put my feelings for this movie into good use before I collapse into a gibbering mess. Here goes...

Ultraviolet rips off about every standard convention created by Hollywood science fiction movies (not to mention sci-fi novels) over the last fifteen years. There is not ONE original idea in this movie. Not a single, solitary unique idea. As I watched this turd, I was constantly reminded of other films like The 5th Element, The Matrix trilogy, Blade, Johnny Mnemonic, and (no surprise) Equilibrium, not to mention about a dozen other sci-fi/action movies.

It starts out with a voice-over by the normally charming Milla Jovovich, where she tries to explain the entire backstory of the movie in about five minutes. Unless you've read the comic book you're not going to find any clarification of the backstory, the universe, or the characters. Somehow the director (or the editor) thought the vague voice-over would make the rest of the movie make sense. It's too bad, because a coherent intro would have made this movie much more tolerable. As it is, all the beginning narrative does is cause a lot of ambivalence towards Milla's character in the long run. Toward the end, I really didn't care if she (or ANY of the characters, for that matter) lived or died.

Ultraviolet had a relatively small budget for a movie of this kind, so the director apparently decided to spend all the money on schlocky special effects instead of a decent plot or script. Do you remember that god-awful Britney Spears video where she rides a motorcycle around a futuristic city? You know, the one where she jumps off rooftops and dodges police cars? Well, save yourself some money and Google that video, because that's exactly what Ultraviolet looks like. My theory is that Kurt Wimmer bought stock footage of the Britney Spears video and then digitally inserted Milla's face.

There is no excuse in this day and age of enhanced CGI for any movie to look this bad, regardless of budget. And the fact that Wimmer decided to stick with primary colors only gives Ultraviolet a very cartoonish look. I think my brain may have been forced into some kind of permanent synesthesia after it was all over. All I can see now are bright, annoying colors everywhere I look. A lawsuit may be in order.

I like Milla Jovovich, and I think she is a very capable actress. That said, she lost a ton of respect from me for taking this role. Not only does it add to the growing list of "strong yet sensitive heroines" she has been steamrolled into playing, but her acting is so wooden throughout I thought I was watching a sentient, shapely tongue depressor try to act its way through a fourth-grade school play. At least the cinematographer had the common sense to show a lot of Milla's bare midriff. That's the only reason Ultraviolet is getting a rating of one star from me. Well, that and the fact that IMDb doesn't let you give zero stars...

Yet another sore point for me was the on-screen technology used throughout the movie. Not only is it incomprehensible (even for a sci-fi flick), there's no explanation as to where, how, or why any of this technology came to be. These are the kinds of ideas that twelve-year old Star Wars fanboys come up with when they are trying to write their first short story. There is no regard to physics or standard scientific principle. I understand that is a Science Fiction movie, but I will not allow myself any suspension of disbelief when a movie doesn't even take the time to justify why Milla can fly through an air-duct, UPSIDE DOWN, only to smash through the roof and land on her feet like some kind of trippy robo-cat.

Oh yeah, apparently the bad guys wear armor made out of fragile black-colored glass. That's real nifty, Mr. Wimmer. No wonder Milla can kick their butts.

Maybe the fight scenes could have made Ultraviolet better, but Wimmer decided to recycle the fighting style used in Equilibrium. I really hope that he's not going to make another movie using "Gun-kata" again; the first time was cool, the second time was stupid, and a third time will just be inexcusable. Worse yet, the fight scenes are nowhere near as classy as they were in Equilibrium. This may be due in part to the fact that obnoxious scenery and background colors make it hard to watch a blur of fists and feet going at it.

Throw in a nonsensical storyline and you've got yourself the worst sci-fi stinker to come around in a long time. At least AvP: Requiem had Aliens and Predators. Ultraviolet only has Milla Jovovich's belly button going for it.

Now please excuse me while I go puke Technicolor into the toilet.

First off, I'll come right out and say that I've only ever seen two of Michael Mann's other movies: Collateral and The Last Of The Mohicans, both of which were entertaining but did not impress me overall. I'm no expert on his work, but he seems to have a knack for taking fairly talented actors and turning them into one-dimensional versions of themselves on screen.

Heat is a perfect example of that talent. We have a huge cast of famous actors, each one morphed into a character that ultimately offers no kind of sympathy with the viewer (at least this viewer). Mann tries so hard to give his characters some kind of emotional value that the actors end up looking like cardboard cutouts of every other role they have played in their illustrious careers.

Why does the director feel the need to delve into the lives of EACH AND EVERY CHARACTER in this flick? He easily added at least 45 minutes of time to a movie that is essentially of the action/crime genre, where character development is not necessarily as important as it would be in a romance or drama. Come on, dwelling on the fact that Natalie Portman's character had some parental issues, or that a minor player in the plot may in fact be a serial killer, or the fact that the getaway driver's wife is distraught over his death, is gratuitous at best. It only adds length to a film that already way too long to make it worth sitting through.

Which comes to my next gripe- this is the first crime movie I have EVER watched where I felt the need to fast-forward through certain scenes that I felt were dragged out too much, which was about 1/3 of the flick. It's really too bad, because Heat certainly had it's moments: the café scene between De Niro and Pacino was outstanding, as were the shoot-out and the final chase scene. If only Mann had concentrated on giving the rest of the movie the same level of intensity, I could have possibly found Heat to be one of my favorites of all time. The director should stick to what he knows best- action. Although I suppose you can't expect too much from the guy who helmed Miami Vice, one of the cheesiest t.v. shows ever made.

Mann should have looked at some other action/crime flicks, such as True Romance or Leon: The Professional to see how character development should really be done- colorful, well-balanced, and efficient. Although he did verify what I have always though about Robert De Niro; if you can make millions of dollars a movie just by hanging around on screen with your mouth open like a kid just off the short bus, then I guess there's hope for everybody to make a career out of acting.

3 out of 10 stars just for the good parts, 1 out of 10 stars for making me wish I had been doing something else for the 172 minutes it took me to finish this yawn-inducer.

I'm a huge Takashi Miike fan, and I love pretty much everything he's ever directed, but I was kinda let down by this movie. If you dig the current wave of J-horror films, you'll like this. It's the same as Ringu, Dark Water, and all those other movies. I kind of got the feeling that this is what Miike was aiming for, but I was still surprised at how restrained he was on this one. No hermaphrodites, sociopaths, or lady-boys in this flick! They probably wouldn't have fit into the plot, anyway... On the plus side, the acting and special effects were pretty good. It seems like he had a larger-than-normal budget on this one, and it shows. Considering that there was very little CGI in this movie, some of the scenes are impressive (the ghost floating on the ceiling takes the cake!). Leave it to Miike to make a commercial horror movie that's still better than 90% of the crap coming out of California these days.