You remind me of the babe.
What babe?
The babe with the power.
What power?
The power of VUDU.
That was lot of research in how I purchased "Ultraviolet" to justify cutting out some sleep for content. I think coming up with a David Bowie/Jim Henson reference about a Milla Jovovich headlined film demonstrates my genius. With that said, I think you should give my pro-wrestling zom-com "Main Event of the Dead" some attention. Feel free to request a treatment of the script via russthebus07@gmail.com. Promotional suggestions would be nice to get this B-movie script into production.
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Ultraviolet
In a world you may not understand, humans have been warring with hemophages, those infected with a vampiric virus originally designed to create better soldiers. This is not a trailer so that neither works as a great opening line for this review or the film. Exposition has a purpose, but the primary message of the film is that explanations are something that can be abandoned when you have CG. The story is about Violet, a single-hemophage killing machine who is looking for a cure to the virus which may be in the package she has stolen from Vice Cardinal Daxus, the de-facto leader of the human government. An end to hemoglophagia would serve as a revenge for the system causing her to lose her husband and unborn child via experimentation.
Instead of there being vials and needles, the package is a young clone of Daxus. The boy, Six, holds the key to a cure, but it has nothing to physically do with him. What is established is that the kid is dying. Because the kid's a work in progress, Daxus want to regain all of that tissue. It may not be the end of this viral age, but Violet's maternal instincts will make it so she will protect and allow Six the most anyone can get out of life.
I hate to be so harsh, probably because it reflects on my own taste and desire to claim Milla Jovovich as a talented actress, but "Ultraviolet" is a mess on every level. After completing that statement, Jovovich was not a mess. Her performance was as good as the script allowed, but the director's attempt to make her a PG-13 level pin up in every shot shows that writer/director Kurt Wimmer has/had a greater obsession with her presence than any nerd on the planet.
He is/was aware that she is married to his style over substance peer Paul W.S. Anderson? His phoney gunkata martial arts is not going to whisk her off her feet. Did he even perceive how stupid punching with a gun firing in the same hand looks?
Wimmer is synonymous with incoherent story telling. He is an M. Night Shyamalan knock off without any chill. Everything has to be a twist. As I had already established, the film thinks it did not need exposition it because of the "cutting-edge" computer graphics. This created an environment that makes it dependent upon his curveball nature. You need a fastball to establish the strike zone, otherwise all your off-speed offerings will require Bob Ueker descriptions.
As for the CG, high definition, let alone FDR (bought into the 4K too soon), has not been kind to it. It felt like "Tron" but with everything filled in. The lines in the Disney classic are thin. If they were filled, it becomes a blur of color. The film also seems to lean on, "obviously this isn't real, so bullets and explosions can look cooler." These bullets and explosions would makes this a B-Movie if you were unaware of the budget.
Despite all of the flaws, if you are looking to direct action, I can see this film providing some situations that you can only improve upon. The film may even look good in storyboards. Timur Berkmambetov has some very similar scenes in his big three features, ("Day Watch", "Night Watch", and "Wanted"). He is a now under-rated director (I will get back to you about "Ben-Hur" [a $5 iTunes special]), so as far as I am concerned, those are now his scenes. If he got the inspiration from this film, he braver than I. I have only watched this thrice.
"Ultraviolet" is an attempt to create something cool without giving the prospective audience a reason to. Milla Jovovich already had "Resident Evil", so this was totally unnecessary. Perhaps you can appreciate some of the intentions, but you are probably looking for reasons to justify spending any of your money on this feature.
This is a tutorial into how to waste $30 million and potential IP for the sake of being an auteur. Director/Writer Kurt Wimmer may have proven with this film to be a bigger disaster than Ed Wood. "Ultraviolet" is best viewed with a couple of robot friends and some illicit substances.
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