Ultraviolet may be the best video game movie ever made, even though a video game version has yet to be produced. The cheap CGI is plentiful, the colors vivid, the heroine single-handedly takes on hundreds of men at once, weapons quite literally appearing in her hands out of nowhere. I interpreted the recent film Running Scared as a long nightmare, and it’s tempting to interpret Ultraviolet as a nerdy teenager playing a T-rated Xbox 360 game.
The film’s plot transparently serves as nothing more than a string from which to hang ten or so action massacres. Violet (the criminally beautiful Milla Jovovich), the heroine, flips from one scene to the next, clad in laughably revealing outfits, butchering anyone that crosses her sight. It’s not that the gunfights aren’t well done, but without even a limp effort at storytelling, all we get are the mish-mash of comic book colors on screen. Later in the film, Violet refuses to attack a building guarded by 700 soldiers, citing superior numbers, though by now nothing has indicated she can be harmed by anything short of terminal cancer.
Within Ultraviolet’s 84 minute running time (including credits), two different resurrections occur, neither with any accompanying explanation. Perhaps Player 1 had several more lives left and the Pre-Algebra homework could wait, though an extra lives meter at the top of the screen could have been useful to the audience.
In 2002, Ultraviolet writer/director Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium was released. Barely heard of in the U.S. until its DVD release, the film was a sci-fi/action masterpiece, a wildly fun, visually stunning, shatteringly touching assault on the senses. Where Equilibrium’s action was over the top but crisp and sharp, Ultraviolet’s fight scenes simply ratchet up the body count until Violet moves on to the next level. Equilibrium’s dark, moody tones gave way to occasional bursts of vibrant color, while Ultraviolet splatters every frame with techno-comic ink that could give migraines to a child.
What I missed most from Equilibrium was a story that worked, with characters and events that I could care about. In Equilibrium’s best sequence, the hero watches a recording of his wife being tried and executed, and rushes prevent another woman he loves from meeting the same fate. Ultraviolet has a scene where Violet tries to rescue a child, but it makes no sense, giving us not a sliver of believable dialogue or action that would imply she would care. Every interaction in the film reeks of phoniness; it could be taught to show why action flicks really do need good characters, after all.
Wimmer may have gotten a bigger budget with Ultraviolet, but jumped several steps backwards. The filmography seems to be reversed, Ultraviolet looking like the experiment, Equilibrium the glorious result. If none of Wimmer’s fans ask "What happened?", he can assume they’re busy playing video games. Good ones.
1.5 out of 5
1 comments:
i totally agree with this one, the biggest problem with movies that i dont like, is the fact that you simply dont care about the characters. this is a prime example. there is no effort at all to develop the characters. was there supposed to be some semblance of a love interest between violet and garth? (retarded name, by the way) they don't bother to develop any dialogue enough for anybody to know.
there are very very precious few ways this movie could have been worse, and i think it would have involved the main leader of "generic evil corporation empire" to turn out to be a werewolf. then have that werewolf ride a dragon. then, have violet call a griffon from the sky. then commence to have a werewolf-vampire battle from atop flying mounts, swinging their retarded swords, and culminating in the realization by violet that she is a clone of the leader of "generic evil corporation empire"'s wife. thusly she is unable to deliver the killing blow, and decides to leave after another cheesy one-liner that would make storm from the x-men movies jealous. at which point he attempts to suckerpunch her in a last-ditch effort to win, then she lights him on fire for no reason and then cuts him in half. then she goes and makes out with the kid-clone of him and rides off into the sunset on her griffon with him, leaving garth in his semi-truck/science lab to weep on his oversized sweaters over the death of his acting carreer, along with all the other stars of the film.
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