Absolutely Fantastic

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

With the overly saturated usage of CGI animation, "Ultraviolet" could potentially pass off as sequel to the 1982 classic, "Tron." It's quite obvious as to why Milla Jovovich was intrigued to star in this vehicle. All she had to do was simply abide through green screen and voila! There was really nothing to it. And I mean that in a literal sense. There was really nothing to it except lots of violence and over excessive CGI. I can be more entertained getting out my Playstation and feel more of a sense of seeing anything meaningful than to sit though this movie again which in this case is highly unlikely.At first glance, the lively animation looks very awesome, but then they rapidly start to wear out its welcome to the point where it begins to be overwhelmingly aggravating. By the first five minutes it becomes clear that the movie was clearly intended for two types of audience members: one for the fans of the science-fiction genre and the second for those who have short attention spans. Jovovich stars as Violet who has an illness called hemoglophagia which gives her super human strength which makes a hemophage who must protect a boy names Six (Cameron Bright) as she goes into battle against strange humanoid minions led by the evil Ferdinand Daxus (Nick Chinlund) who seem to wear weird looking salt shaker tubes up their nostrils. Even though it pans off as a simple and by-the-numbers sci-fi action film, "Ultraviolet" has a reputation of being both complex when it really shouldn't and very repetitive in its action scenes. And while Violet looks sexy in her leather-clad apparel and her Veronica Lodge hairdo, we have to truly care about the characters both heroes and villains to get a better understanding of them to really invest into this movie. In the nearly 90 minute film, Violet in green-screen glory, is battling Daxus' hordes of minions who look tough and menacing from eye reach, but then thy just stand there like numbskulls and wind up getting decapitated. Where's the challenge? Because of its PG-13 rating, we don't see any bloodshed. Unless it was from a distance so that the kids watching won't run from the theaters. It must've been a hefty budget to make this movie due to the amount of special effects utilized. If that's not enough, writer/director Kurt Wimmer hires a greener than an evergreen young thespian like Cameron Bright, who seems dazed and expressionless the whole time through. I often wondered if this Six character was a human or a cyborg? In the end what difference does it make?For Wimmer there was very little in scripting to even care what was happening. There are some shades of "Minority Report" touches in this dystopian society all the video game come-to-life action emanates. In this world there only appears to be three occupations you can pursue: either an evil corrupt corporate executive, a scientist, or an enforcer. Sure that may sound simple, but the dialogue unashamedly is anything but. There's a plethora of high-tech incoherent gibbering about antigens, antidotes and little manifestations that if you take their whole diatribe seriously and try to make sense of it, you will likely give yourself a migraine. It tries to have that same aura as that of "The Matrix", but it's nowhere near that classic film series. The first fifteen minutes were very captivating, but after a while, it just gets done to death and all the originality gets drained out making the movie quite uneventful. You have a platoon full of baddies surrounding Violet and with her powerful sword annihilates them in one swipe or a few shots of gunfire. I'm guessing, being an enforcer is the hardest job there is.The ending is very convoluted as were invited to a flaming sword battle taking place in the dark which feels like there's a bit of "Highlander" going for it only less exciting and dramatic. In spite of the film gratuitous violence and coarse language, "Ultraviolet" is anything but an eventful night out for anyone. Between the overdone action sequences and the over abundance of CGI and very little character development, this movie has every chance of winning the Oscars as Wimpy from Popeye's gives up hamburgers.

A beautiful hemophage infected with a virus that gives her superhuman powers has to protect a boy in a futuristic world, who is thought to be carrying antigens that would destroy all hemophages. If you asked me about Ultraviolet and what i thought about it back in 2006 or 2007 i would have told you that it's a great movie but now after seeing it a couple of times i can see the many problems that it faces from the laughable special effects that look like they came out of a 1983 film to the over the top action, the cheesy acting and the mediocre villains plus the story isn't that good either but as a movie it does what it was meant to do pretty well because if you want to see Milla Jovovich kicking the sh*t out of people for about 1 hour and 30 minutes you are going to get that plus the Opening Titles weren't that bad although they did remind me of Spider-Man a bit. Ultraviolet is like Batman and Robin you know it's bad and dumb and the characters are one note but you enjoy watching it for it's campy side and weird action sequences because if there are people who found Catwoman good then there are people out there as well that found something good about this film and in a way it does it's job perfectly for what it was meant to be. (8/10)

I previously enjoyed Kurt Wimmer's sci-fi thriller EQUILIBRIUM, which had an at-his-best Christian Bale rebelling against an emotionless state and kicking lots of backside along the way. ULTRAVIOLET is Wimmer's follow-up, a similar movie with a similar theme: in a futuristic world plagued by a vampire virus, a sole woman rebels against her own side and ends up on the run from pretty much everybody. However, where EQUILIBRIUM excelled in what it set out to do, ULTRAVIOLET is just a big mess – a muddle of clichés, silly ideas, and poor acting that's laughable from the very start.Milla Jovovich seems to be the actress of choice for these B-movie messes; after her 'success' in the RESIDENT EVIL trilogy, filmmakers are crying out for her to kick ass in their own movies. She's not a patch on Bale in Wimmer's previous movie; in fact, she's one of my least favourite actresses and she just doesn't seem to have a clue what acting is all about. Standing around posing and looking cool does not a good actress make! It doesn't help that there are some other terrible performances from cast members like scene-chewing villain Nick Chinlund while other, decent actors like William Fichtner are completely wasted.The story about vampires and viruses and antidotes is all very passé and comes off like a shiny, chromatic variant on the UNDERWORLD silliness. To make matters worse, this film boasts some of the poorest special effects work I've witnessed in my life – absolutely awful CGI cityscapes and rubbishy looking explosions and gunfire. The motorbike chase is hilarious awful and one of the worst things I've ever witnessed in my life. I know the makers of this are trying to pass it off as SIN CITY-inspired comic-book-on-screen mayhem, but it just looks like what it is – amateurish in the extreme. Even the action scenes with their own brand of made-up martial arts called 'gunkata' were done better in EQUILIBRIUM. No, ULTRAVIOLET is a film that's not worth bothering with in the slightest – a poor, uninteresting excuse for a movie.

Right from the start, I liked this film! First of all, the illustrations at the beginning have the quality of DC 's "Batman - The Dark Knight" by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson. The atmosphere reminds me a bit of "Sin City". The action and martial arts scenes are a combination of "The Matrix" and "Equilibrium" (gunkata)! Obviously, this being a Milla Jovovich film, also means that she frequently changes her outfit. Apparently, all this combined inspired the makers to step up a little on the special effects. In any of the above-mentioned films, that might have looked over the top or even ridiculous, but in this film I liked it! I would easily have given this film a higher mark, if the storyline had been less predictable.