Released: 03/03/06

Viewed: 7:25pm 03/03/06

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, William Fichtner

Directed by: Kurt Wimmer

Sony Pictures Official Site of the movie

Milla Jovovich stars as Violet, one of an advanced breed of vampires, accidentally made by man, that have been outcast from society. She's powerful, deadly, and hot. Just like every other character she plays. Like Milla's cloned persona, Ultraviolet boasts no original thoughts or ideas. It's repackaged, recycled, good old-fashioned post apocalyptic sci-fi. You've seen it before; you'll see it again. But an incomplete plot and a weak vampire twist don't offer up nearly enough to make this one worth the trip.

Upon retrieving something that could potentially wipe out her kind or possibly offer up a cure she chooses to keep it from both sides and go on the run. Why? Well, it's a spoiler. A lame spoiler that brings up a morality issue. It's a cheap ploy to get you to side with her decision to run. Honestly though, it doesn't matter. You want Violet to run. That's when she kills people.

The problem with her running is that it's never really properly explained. Nothing is. General ideas are given about the outcast society and what they really are, but we're left to put the pieces together ourselves. I would be fine with that if this was a non-stop chase movie. If she were always on the move, never stopping, never resting, constantly back flipping her way from one bad situation into another. It would be great. They wouldn't have to explain it. But this movie takes its sweet old time. It slows down and takes time to explain? absolutely nothing.

A lot of you saw this movie though, and if you're like me you didn't go especially for the storyline anyway. It's all been done before. It's the unique twists that make the differences. Like the action.

Ultraviolet has a lot of action but I found it to be either hit or miss. A pg-13 gave us bloodless sword slashes and 3 or 4 off camera ass beatings. Something like that is good to establish your heroine as a tough cookie, but my 10.75 demands to see boot in face.

But when it's good, it's good. There's a scene on a roof where Violet is surrounded and dodges gunfire so the bullets will kill unsuspecting killers on the opposite side. It was actually an inventive and beautiful sequence. Besides Jovovich's stick thin frame bending in impossible directions, director Kurt Wimmer plays this game where the camera changes perspectives via reflections in sunglasses. It's hard to explain but it's quite effective.

Some of the more exciting ideas action wise comes with the toys Violet plays with. She has some fun with anti gravity and synthetic weaponry, which I admit, was very cool. Some good ideas at work but nothing we haven't seen before in one form or another.

As good as these scenes can get thin acting and horrible dialogue destroy it. Jovovich can act. I know she's a pretty girl but she's talented beyond her long legs stylish wig. Look at The Messenger or even The Fifth Element. Not a lot of people could be that hot and pull off LeeLoo Dallas that well. But the dialogue here was so bad that it all comes off fake and ineffectual. In the final fight when Nick Chinlund's character turns to Violet and says: "It's so on." Irv and I promptly rolled our eyes and gave each other the ultimate sarcastic high five imaginable.

At least the rotten dialogue matched the incomplete plot though. Wouldn't want it to feel lonely.

I did see this with Irv and his biggest complaint was the style. There's this huge Vaseline fog over the entire film. Effects that people will either love or hate, but something that, to me, added a little individuality. When I saw the trailer I remember thinking it looked synthetic. If there was a reason for it then it could be awesome. The way that the upcoming A Scanner Darkly's eerie combination of live action and animation speaks to an underlying element of the duality in the plot. If they could justify it I could celebrate it, instead it ends up being an artistic choice. I couldn't even tell you for sure if it was intentional. It didn't bother me, but I've heard some people damning it.

If you haven't seen this movie yet I would recommend staying away. Possibly saving it for a rental. Even though there are some fun action sequences they are too few and far between and not nearly strong enough to cover up the negative pieces of this mess. The plot is holeyer that the Catholic Church. Everyone was so worried about the kicks being on mark that no one remembered to bring the script to the set. Rating: 3 out of 10

A disappointment considering this had potential be the Aeon Flux style action adventure that Aeon Flux was not. No points against Jovovich. If I didn't hate her after Resident Evil: Apocalypse then I won't hold a grudge now. No hard feelings towards Wimmer. This is his first full scale nation wide directorial release, but his first film Equilibrium (see below) was so strong that I'll be on board for at least his next 2 disasters.

DVD worthy?: Never. There are some movies where I can persuade myself into thinking they might be worth getting. Not this. Well? maybe with an extended edition that had more plot development? no. NO! Must not buy this movie!

If you liked this movie check out: Equilibrium

I hadn't known that Ultraviolet and Equilibrium shared the same director until actually doing research after the movie. Still I was instantly reminded of the 2002 post World War III story about control and emotion when I noticed in Ultraviolet, of all things, a similar fighting style.

The style that wrier/director Wimmer developed in Equilibrium called "Gunkatta", is clearly used to a degree by Jovovich in Ultraviolet. It's a form of stationary hand-to-hand fighting that includes guns. She moves a lot more when she does it, but the same principles are implemented. I admit though that it looks much cooler the way Christian Bale does it in Equilibrium.

The combat in Equilibrium was beyond impressive, partially I'm sure because of its originality, but it just plain looked good. Coupled with the story of a self medicated culture, blindly living in fear under the thumb of a mysterious father figure, and you've got one of the more entertaining "In the not too distant future" movies of the last 10 years.

Ultraviolet has a few good action sequences but none that touch the better moments of Equilibrium. If you're all about the action then that is the way to go, but if midriffs are a higher priority, the action of Ultraviolet isn't horrible. And there's plenty of belly button.

For a more in depth look at Equilibrium you can go to the members section of the Digital Pimp boards here. Sorry, the only catch is you have to be a member to view it. It's in a thread called "DVD's, Are They Worth It?" where for the past 3 months I've been rewatching my DVDS's and writing mini reviews on them. It's sort of my little side project for the year.

Trailer Hitch: Little Man

Remember in 2004 when you first saw the trailer for White Chicks and you didn't believe it was really happening? You didn't believe that someone had invested any amount of money into a project like that? Well the Wayans brothers have done it again with the new comedy Little Man.

The trailer for this movie has the same shocking awkwardness that White Chicks did. This time younger brother Marlon plays a little person whose a small time crook that ends up posing as a baby to help his criminal ways. Wayans is not a little person in real life, so the effect is captured perfectly through a series of camera tricks and digital effects. And by "perfectly" I mean "not at all".

The effects look utterly ridiculous. As in White Chicks, for their plan to work it requires that the people they're scheming on are a special combination of blind and retarded. The same could be said for the audience.

That said, White Chicks was actually pretty funny and I have a lot of faith that the Wayans brothers will bring home a good amount of big laughs. I'll be their opening night, and I'll be about as drunk as I get.

Vote Bonus:

Voting today will get you an image of me in my best Gunkatta pose from Equilibrium. Ow!

About the Comic:

So this is a potential new character, the know-it-all movie snob. I want to call him "Kyle the movie snob", but I'm not setting that in stone just yet. The sad thing is, what Kyle says in this comic is most definitely correct, but no one likes a movie snob. When you go to see a zombie movie you don't talk about how it represents the mindless mob culture and our willingness to submit to popular opinion in the face of danger. You talk about how awesome it was when that one zombie got his head split in two with the broken mallet.

Anyway, if there's ever a big message Kyle will pop up. And then he will promptly be socked in the breadbasket.

Non movie related stuff:

Earlier this week a good friend sent me a little Happy Belated 100th strip pin-up. Thanks Pouges. You not only made me super skinny, but you made my day. Everyone go check out his comic Hanger Rats. His stuff has a very Mahfood quality to it, which is beautiful.

A couple of weeks ago at the NY Comic Con, the whole mess of us went to a bar afterwards, had some drinks and did a lot of talking and drawing. We finally got some of that stuff scanned in to share with the world. Feast your eye's on a Jam Comic done by me, Phil, Clay, and Mitch. All we had were two ballpoint pens but we made it work! Completely insane, but so much fun. I had the drawing bug that night and had to keep drawing while it wasn't my turn on the jam. Here's my big sketch page from that night which includes two characters from the upcoming Rain Dogs comic.

That was such a great night, getting to just hang out and draw with people I rarely see. Can't wait for the next big convention.

That's enough to digest for now. Thanks for reading guys.