Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet

3 out of 10

Running time: 1:25

MPAA rating: PG-13 (Sequences of violent action throughout, partial nudity and language.)

Peruvian rating: Mayores de 14

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, William Fichtner.
Director: Kurt Wimmer
Script: Kurt Wimmer
Photography: Arthur Wong, Jimmy Wong
Score: Klaus Badelt
Distributor: Screen Gems

About a year ago, I went to the theatre to see I film. I mean, any film. It was a really boring weekend, and since not a single high-profile film had been released, I went to see Ultraviolet. It was one of the worst decisions I took that year. Having seen Equilibrium, I thought Kurt Wimmer was kind of talented, and I definitely wasn’t expecting the piece of crap Ultraviolet is. The film’s like watching a bad, first-generation videogame. The screenplay is laughably dumb, the special effects look amazingly fake, and what’s worse, the filmmakers have managed to make Milla Jovovich look like a mannequin. The movie’s not Uwe Boll-kind of bad, but it’s amazingly close.

The film tells the “story” of Violet (Milla Jovovich), who is a “Hemophage” (a woman with some kind of blood sickness) who has been thrown out of a paranoid society afraid of pathogens. Being amazingly agile, strong, and skillful with weapons, she’s humanity’s only hope for fighting against the government’s military forces, lead by Daxus (Nick Chinlund), who wants to destroy all Hemophages. He’s created an ultimate weapon, and Violet has to destroy it. The “weapon” turns out to be a kid called Six (Cameron Bright), and Violet is not willing to kill him, meaning he now has to run from both friends and enemies.

One of the film’s first errors lies in its tone. The film thinks itself as a serious, artful and meaningful film, when it’s actually dumb and uninteresting. The movie is boring both when presenting us with CGI action sequences, and scenes of laughably bad dialogue. Additionally, the actors look either confused or serious. (Maybe they were led to believe that film’s screenplay has some meaning.) Nick Chinlund is a crappy bad guy, acting sometimes too blandly and sometimes over-the-top. Milla Jovovich, who isn’t a great actress but has shown screen presence in previous outings, looks like a mannequin and, much like all the other actors, shows absolutely no emotion.

Another mistake made by Wimmer and his team lies in the film’s style and special effects. Given the nature of the film, one would expect it to have breathtaking or simply effective effects, but that’s not the case. All the CGI backgrounds look amazingly fake and obviously digital, and one sequence in particular (a motorbike chase) made me spit my soda of laughter. The digital effects seem as if they were lifted from a Play Station one videogame, and don’t blend at all with the flesh-and-bone actors. Additionally, given the film’s introduction, it seems Wimmer wanted to make the film feel like a comic book onscreen, but he doesn’t succeed. The PG-13-rated action is lackluster, with Violet slashing and hacking unmemorable bad guys with her sword or shooting them with her big, fake guns. There’s absolutely no tension nor suspense; the battles are simplistic, confusing, and ultimately boring.

Reportedly, the film was cut by the studios because they didn’t like Wimmer’s version of the movie. I don’t know if the director’s cut would be somehow more watchable than the theatrical cut – or the normal DVD version – but I can’t imagine it being any better. For this film to be better it would need tons of re-shooting, different actors and better special effects; virtually everything would need to be changed. Wimmer surprised me and enthralled me with his previous effort, Equilibrium, but his latest movie is no more than fake-looking, badly-acted, incompetently-shot and amazingly boring garbage. Wimmer would be good friends with Uwe Boll.