Click Poster to Purchase
Review #53 of 365
Film: Ultraviolet [PG-13] 85 minutes
WIP: $9.00
When 1st Seen: 4 March 2006
Where Viewed: United Artists Thornton Town Center 10, Thornton, CO
Time: 7:35 p.m.
Review Dedicated to: Bret W. of Faribault, MN
 |
DVD |
Ultraviolet is the latest in the comic book superhero-turned live action movies. I have no previous experience with Ultraviolet the comic book character, so I apologize to fans of the comic book when I say that if the comic book plots are anything nearly as convoluted as the movie plot, well, at least they have the benefit of being able to flip back a few pages and re-read to see if they missed something. In any case, I feel the needs to break this film down piece by piece, and hopefully, this way be able to determine a fair W.I.P. score which I’m having trouble doing right now off the top of my head.
Special Effects
The special effects are incredible. I don’t know why they seemed so spectacular. I don’t know if part of it was the Scion xB (click and go have some fun designing your own car, it’s fun) commercial that uses a similar technology before the movie that primed the audience for the special effects enjoyment or what, but they were stunning, cool, stylistic, and ingenious. Ultraviolet has the ability to transform herself (hair color, outfit, etc), some super cool, projector thing-a-mooochies on her wrists let her to instantaneously project what ever weapon she’d like to have at her disposal from automatic hand-held projectile weapons to a modern hybrid language etched square sword, and this ultra-fierce kinetic discharge dome gadget on her belt that allows her to flip gravity for her into any plane she chooses allowing her to walk on the ceiling or, even more fierce, ride her motorcycle on the sides of buildings to evade capture. And this just gives you a small sampling of the countless special effects. ($13)
Acting
Well, Ultraviolet is played by supermodel and movie action heroine, Milla Jovovich, who was my absolute favorite in The 5th Element. Here, she is even more of all that if you know what I mean. Let’s say the costume designers knew what they were doing and leave it at that. But, Ms. Jovovich does something pretty special with her role, for as much as I could make of it. Though she’s supposedly no longer human as she has been infected with a super virus that I guess kills most people and turns others into super humans forcing the regular humans to seek their destruction, she entangles her super hero veneer with the mothering instinct within—she lost her child when she became infected with the virus. Overall, she does a pretty good job with the role. There were a few lines of dialog—mind you this was not a dialog-driven film—that were just robotic and shallow that made me wonder. As if being on screen for most of the also-in-theatres-right-now-Paul-Walker film Running Scared (2006), Cameron Bright plays the young boy named, affectionately, 6 and whom Ultraviolet must decide whether to protect or kill. Make this Mr. Bright’s third straight major motion picture role where he plays a non-smiling, emotionless, non-talkative, abused child. The good news for him is that he will grow up so this typecasting won’t last too much longer for him I hope. It’s hard to tell, though, after these consecutive performances if the kid can really act of if he is just playing this one character over and over. I might have to take back my Running Scared (2006) review reference to him being the male Dakota Fanning. The super villain of the film is Daxus portrayed by Nick Chinlund—one of those guys you’ll know when you see him—who adds a dash of daring, devil-may-care-I’m-only-interested-in-the-dough attitudes to his whole dark cloud of a performance. He does a good job taking care not to push his role over the top like Jim Carey did as the Riddler in Batman Forever for example. Meanwhile, Ultraviolet’s only friend in the world, Garth, was played by William Fichtner currently of ABC’s Invasion fame, and I apologize, he does a good job with the role, but it’s not clear really what his role is though there is some veiled reference of, maybe, him being Ultraviolet’s former main squeeze or, at least, he has/had the desire to be. The rest of the cast members are basically shells of people and people wearing fighter jet pilot outfits who get massacred by the dozens at the hands of ultra violent Ultraviolet. ($9.50)
The Plot
All right, some people suggest you should save the best for last. I have decided that it is opposite day. So, I have saved the worst for last. The plot. The plot. The plot. Well, it’s just plain confusing and, as I wrote before, convoluted, and mystifying. I am not able to tell you if one were steeped in Ultraviolet lore if the film makes more sense because, as I also wrote, I have not read the comic book. Truthfully, I had not read the X-Men either, and I have understood and been able to follow both of the X-Men films released to date. Hey, I even understood Daredevil—sorry Mr. Affleck. In any case, Ultraviolet though being a really cool name for a superhero, in this film has been born into a world that she starts off in voice over telling the audience we might not understand and ends the film in voice over telling us that we might not understand. Well, guess what, I didn’t understand it, she was 100% correct. I am a bio/chem. double major, believe me, I get the science here, but I didn’t get what was going on or why. Are the super virus-infected people vampires? They are sometimes referred to as vampires. Certainly they are able to be out in the sun which is a major violation of vampire lore. Some of them have vampire-esque canine teeth which seemed to grow as the movie progressed, yet, Ultraviolet shows no signs of having these. Nor do they ever seem to need to access blood for food or go around converting people. At one point, Daxus says that nearly all of the infected people are extinct, yet Ultraviolet seems to have quite a few infected friends. And, I don’t want to give anything away, but I will simply add that Daxus’s words will prove even more ironic and just plain wrong near the end of the film. The little kid is supposed to be some kind of key to some plot to do something terrible—let me know if you can really decipher it if you have the spare funds to go see this film or have to see a movie every day like I do and go see it for that reason. Here’s sort of what I got, again, without trying to give away too much…he is a weapon, there is something in his blood that’s bad to someone, he’s been infected with it in some way, he might have a cure for the super virus in him, or he might not, Garth might be able to get something useful out of him or he might not, but we’ll never know because Garth’s work, what ever that is, is too important to jeopardize (maybe they’ll explain that in the sequel?). Finally, Ultraviolet’s network of friends? Supposedly they are all infectees. Supposedly they have the same powers of super strength and quick movement that she has. Supposedly they all want the same thing she does and that is revenge on the humans for (a) infecting them and (b) now trying to kill them all. Ok. And yet, she’s the only one that seems to be able to take on an army of 30 men and come out without a scratch. The others? Well, let’s just say they don’t fare as well. Meanwhile, when they fight Ultraviolet—yeah, with friends like these who needs enemies right?—they remind her they have the same super powers as she does, but she defeats them anyway because she has something they lack, anger? Gee, wouldn’t you be pretty upset if the government was trying to develop a super virus to infect and make super soldiers and the virus got out and infected you and caused you to have super strength and speed and then they wanted to kill you? I don’t know, I think that would make me pretty angry. Anyway, the long and the short of the plot is that it just doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, and I don’t mean in The Matrix-like you might get this if your mind is on the right plane of understanding and realize that there is no spoon doesn’t make sense. I mean, there are just too many major plot incongruities that don’t add up. ($5)
Summary
Okay, so let’s total and average it up. Oh, and let’s throw in another ($10) for locations which were Hong Kong and Shanghai—two of my favorite world cities and certainly the two most architecturally interesting cities on the planet today. And, let’s give the writer/director, Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium and The Recruit) a $12 for directing and a $7 for writing. So we have $13 + $9.50 + $5 + $10 + $12 + $7 = $9.41. So, let’s round to the nearest quarter and give Ultraviolet, despite the less than spectacular acting and convoluted plot, a $9.50. I feel that worked perfectly because it means this is slightly more than an average “you should go see it film”. I do think some members of the audience which, for some reason, had a lot of very young kids in it (like 5 through 7-year olds), was more fascinated and jazzed up by the Scion commercial before the previews than by the film itself, however.
Available for Purchase or Pre-Order on DVD
Find your movies at MoviesUnlimited.com.
Ultraviolet (Unrated Version) [DVD](2006) DVD
Ultraviolet [DVD](1998) DVD
Ultraviolet [Blu-ray](2006)
Ultraviolet [DVD](2006) DVD
Ultraviolet (Unrated Version) (UMD For PlayStation Portable)(2006)
| Book | VHS | DVD |
| Related VHS | Related DVD | Related DVD |
No comments:
Post a Comment