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 3rd
or 4th time, I have no idea why they kept trying the 7th
or 8th 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.
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