#34(a) Ultraviolet (Wes)

Ultraviolet

Honestly it comes as a slight relief when we have to sub movies sometimes. The movie that we were due to watch was a movie called Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag. It runs at just under three hours long and has a really poor rating on IMDB. Now whilst I don’t mind subtitles for such a long movie if it’s brilliant (eg Seven Samaurai), I’m not so keen if it’s the sort of movie which is going to make me want to claw my eyes out (EDIT: We have since found this movie and it will now act as a later sub). However our first sub is a movie I’ve had zero interest in watching since its release, the 2006 vampire(esque) movie Ultraviolet. Was I right to avoid this like Dracula avoids a dinner party round Peter Kaye’s house? Only one way to find out…

Ultraviolet is set in a dystopian future where a virus that gives people pointy teeth, super-human strength and an aversion to crosses, stakes in the heart and sunlight is running rampant. Never having heard the phrase “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck” or seen Die Hard Dracula (see here) these infected people are known as “hemophages” and not vampires. The government isn’t a fan of these hemophages (Bloody government! Even in the future they object to their citizens minding their own business, and just going about killing people for their blood), and are trying to exterminate anyone infected with this disease. Violet Song Jat Shariff (Milla Jovovich) was been infected a decade ago (which apparently means she now has the life expediency of an X-Factor winners career) and fights to defend the hemophages. When she steals a weapon, that actually turns out to be a young boy called Six (Cameron Bright), she runs away, believing that a cure for the hemophage virus can be found in the boys blood. Will she find the cure in time? Will she ever run out of bullets? Does Daxus (Nick Chinlund) really think that accessorising your nostrils is going to catch on? Why does so much of the soundtrack sound like it’s from a strange future porn movie?

The opening credits to the movie show multiple covers of the Ultraviolet comic, which as a comic book fan I was surprised that I’d never heard of it, but since there are so many small publishers I naturally assumed it was from one of them. So it came as a surprise when I learned that the comic never actually existed.

It isn’t unheard of to make a comic book movie that isn’t based on a comic, The Incredibles or The Toxic Avenger for example, but Ultraviolet suffers from the fact Wimmer doesn’t seem to understand that comics can rarely get away with being nothing but action anymore, and need strong characterisation to keep people reading them. There are worse comic book movies out there, but this is easily as bad as Elektra or Catwoman (see here).

Ultraviolet is like a cross between Blade II, Underworld and The Matrix. It’s very very much a film that is relying purely on its various fights (fist and gun) and high octane chases to maintain any level of interest in the movie, as its plot is so thin it resembles a Martian atmosphere. The problem being, that the fight and chase scenes in Ultraviolet just look a bit shit mainly due to the over-reliance on CGI, including attempting to give the background a comic book feel, but in reality, it just looks like more like a blurred Aqua music video.

As you’d expect from a movie that is on our list, the acting is on a par with a footballer clutching his leg and rolling around as he tries to win his team a penalty.  It’s much better than what we’ve endured in recent movies, but that’s hardly a compliment. I want to like Milla Jovovich, as there aren’t many female action stars, but she suffers like most other action stars do in the fact whilst she’s fighting she’s ok, but outside of that her performances are so flat they could be slid under a door.

To say Milla Jovovich only ever plays one character in her movies would be unfair. I’ve looked at her page on IMDB and they all have different names, so they clearly can’t be the same. However if you put Violet’s clothes on Alice in Resident Evil you really would struggle to tell the difference. Basically she’s like a female Jean Claude Van Damme; If you like watching her fight, shoot and struggle to deliver her lines more than a Yodel delivery driver struggles to deliver a parcel, then you’ll probably enjoy anything that she stars in.

The best way to describe this movie is popcorn violence for the unfussy, but if you can switch your brain off it is just about watchable. Ultimately though for a movie that relies so much on style over substance, this movie contains very little style and is little more than a violent, half and a half long hair dye commercial. Just For Men? Just For Teenage Boys would probably be more accurate…

#34(a) Ultraviolet (2006) (Colin)

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, Sebastien Andrieu

Director: Kurt Wimmer

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi

The next movie on our list was supposed to be the Bollywood film, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, (2007), however we could not find an English copy and learning Hindi was a bit time consuming.  Therefore we went back to our reserve list and replaced this film with not one but two bad movies as punishment.

**** Update – We have since found this movie and it is now our #26 film! ****

The first replacement movie is Ultraviolet (2006) which gets an IMDb rating of 4.6, which for this list is pretty good, (Ki Aag scored a miserable 2.1).  Maybe we have dodged a bullet here?  In fact the lead role of our next movie has dodged many bullets in her time…. 

Milla Jovovich is probably best known for her Resident Evil movies, in fact for me she is only known for her Resident Evil movies.  Now I will say off the bat that I don’t mind these films.  I thought the first one was pretty good and the follow ups have got progressively worse, which sequels tend to do, but generally they are watchable. 

They are popcorn movies, no need to concentrate and good with a hangover.  They ditched following the video game early on and decided to have some fun with loud explosions and monsters and I don’t have a problem with that.  The movies, however, are only really about one person; Jovovich’s character Alice.

When I read the synopsis for Ultraviolet, my heart sank a little as I noticed that this movie also seems to revolve around Jovovich and that she is a one woman kicking ass army.  This all sounded a bit familiar…...

Which led me to the question; does Ultraviolet feel like a Resident Evil spin-off?

The movie begins with Jovovich introducing herself as Violet and giving us the background story to a world we couldn’t possibly imagine, (which is a bit silly as I’m watching said unimaginable world).  A global epidemic has turned some people into vampire like creatures known as ‘hemophages’.  They have super human strength, fangs and can no longer look at steak without wincing.

Led by Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus, (Nick Chinlund), The Archministry, (a bunch of medical bods who fight disease with machine guns; No head, no headache is their motto), have found a cure for the hemophages.  Essentially they can reduce the number of people affected by the disease by turning alive hemophage sufferers, into dead hemophage sufferers.  The plan is flawless until a bunch of whinging bitey people decide death is not for them and begin to fight back.

Violet herself was infected 10 years ago and is one of those fighting against Daxus and co.  To cause a serious dent in Daxus’s killing spree, she decides to steal a weapon from the Archministry which was designed to kill all hemophages.  The plan goes swimmingly until she opens the weapon’s case only to discover it contains a young boy called Six, (Cameron Bright).

She comes to the conclusion that Six must contain a virus which will wipe out the hemophages and that if they can get the virus and turn it upside down it should become a cure for hemophages!   She ends up taking Six to head of the resistence, Nerva, (Sebastien Andrieu), who actually reveals the twist.  Six does contain a virus but it’s a virus that will harm humans!

Daxus has a cunning plan, you see operation ‘kill vampire type humans’ has been very successful and the job is nearly complete, which puts Daxus in a bit of a pickle.  No virus means no power and so he needs a new strain of the virus, to keep fear amongst the people.  This is why Six contains new improved hemophage v.2.0. with Pro-Retinol A and why Daxus will stop at nothing to get Six back.

Can Violet protect Six from Daxus?  Will she defeat Daxus and the Archministry? And is the background constantly blurred or do I need to change my glasses?

It turns out my bi-focals are fine and that the background was constantly blurred as director Kurt Wimmer, was trying to give this movie a comic book feel.  I kinda see what he is doing as colours are bright and vivid and the background is obviously CGI to give a ‘painted’ feel, but the constant blur and soft focus makes me feel like I’m watching a comic which has been left on a boil wash.  Visually this is not Sin City (2005) or A Scanner Darkly (2006).

Now I will say off the bat, I think this movie is OK.  I didn’t hate it and found it easy to watch and mildly entertaining.  There are lots of actions scenes and so many guns that our earlier action packed bulletfest bad movie, Ecks vs Sever, (see blog here), now looks like Songs of Praise.  If you’re hungover and have a large packet of Cool Original Doritos to munch, this is the movie for you.

It’s IMDb rating of 4.6 is about right and because as it’s a mid-range score, it’s no surprise there are some issues with the movie.

As well as the flaky background, there are the flaky costumes.  For some reason Daxus wears a tea strainer under each nostril.  It appears our bogies in the future will be separated into solid and liquid although the reason for this is not explained by the movie.  Also in the future Star Wars Stormtroopers will be a reality, although they are not quite to the imagination of George Lucas.  They will look as if they’ve been cobbled together with household items as part of a science fair.

Then there’s the storyline or should I say the lack of it.  The bulk of the movie is taken up with Violet killing wave after wave of people and changing her hair colour, (each new wave is the same pattern of surrounding Violet in a circle and then promptly becoming worm feed.   If this strategy didn’t work the 3^rd or 4^th time, I have no idea why they kept trying the 7^th or 8^th time!).  The actual plot is so thin it’s won a modelling contract.

The action then is the big part of this movie, but the rinse and repeat of surrounding Violet and Violet killing them all without so much as breaking into a sweat does get repetitive and predictable.  In fact it feels like we’ve seen this all before…..

So does Ultraviolet feel like a Resident Evil spin-off?  Yes it does, without a doubt.

Violet is just the same character as Alice, but with Glucoma.  She is a one woman army, like Alice, killing waves after waves of baddies, like Alice, using big swords, guns and some martial arts, like Alice.

A more apt name for this movie would have been Resident Evil: Ultraviolet and it really should have been a DLC movie, bolted onto your copy of Resident Evil.  In fact it does feel like a game add-on as it’s strangely familiar and yet looks a bit different.

In terms of video games, Ultraviolet does not stink the place up like Resident Evil 6, (pehyew!).  I'd say it’s more like Silent Hill:  It copies Resident Evil, has been done before, but still enjoyable.