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Ultraviolet (review).
Jun. 26th, 2006 09:36 amIf there seems to be a ‘big idea’ in Hollywood this last year or two, it is that of hot girl in tight clothing playing vampire/superpowered rebel in a dystopian world. We’ve had Catwoman (Awful), Electra (worse), Underworld:Evolution (rotten) and Aeon Flux (poor), and now we’ve got Ultraviolet. Can Milla Jovovitch as a leather-clad vampire superheroine in a dystopian future continue the run of poor quality in this style of film?
You’d be surprised. Unlike any of the above films, Ultraviolet isn’t awful, rotten, or poor. Ultraviolet is, in fact, utterly, unredeemably shit. Unlike any of the above films, which all had small but noticeable redeeming features, Ultraviolet has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It may well be the worst film I’ve ever seen in my life. Not in a hip, post-modern, ‘so bad it’s good’ sort of way, but in a ‘this is the worst film I’ve ever seen and I’m leaving the cinema’ sort of way. When the film started rolling, there were perhaps ten people in the cinema auditorium. By the time the film ended, there were only four left. More than half the audience left during the film. That should give you some idea. I was in the cinema when England were playing Ecuador in the World Cup. When a film about semi-naked female vampires cannot hold an audience of the sort of people who’d watch a semi-naked female vampire movie in preference to the World Cup, then you know there’s something seriously up with it.
I’d warn of plot spoilers, but there’s nothing to spoil. Really.
It is the future. You can tell it’s the future because everyone lives in a cheaply-CGI’d city and wears clothes which can change colour at will but otherwise look like something out of a mid-1990’s GAP catalogue. In the opening exposition (quite literally, the head bad guy talking to his minions saying “As you know, two hundred years ago…”, and none of them replying “As we already know this, why the hell are you telling us? Is the scriptwriter that bad?”) we learn that an experimental virus used to create super-soldiers had escaped into the population and created ‘Haemophages’, which is just a fancy name for vampires. Milla Jovovitcvh plays Violet, a vampire who is pretty ‘ultra’.
Can you see the clever thing they did with the character name and the title of the film? Can you? Well, that’s as clever as this film gets. The play on words between the title and the name of the lead character is the intellectual highlight of this worthless pile of cinematic ordure.
Like most movie vampires, the ones in Ultraviolet have impressive physical powers and healing, but unlike most movie vampires they do not seem to have any weaknesses to sunlight or garlic or, well, pretty much anything, really. There’s no downside to being a vampire – you never even see one having to drink blood. You’d think everyone would want to be one, but no. The human population seem terrified of them, for no apparent reason. Couple this with the astonishing virulence of the vampiric virus (you can contract it simply by having vampire body fluids touch your skin, never mind any of that old-fashioned blood-sucking. The only sucking round here is the film) and you’d suppose that it would spread like wildfire, but that’s not the case. Instead, vampires are on the brink of being wiped out and humans have discovered an ‘ultimate weapon’ which will wipe out all vampires forever.
Cue Milla Jovovitch fighting hordes of identikit faceless black clad goons who either attack her one by one (if she’s using wire-fu), or, if they have guns, who repeatedly stand round her in a perfect circle and all squeeze their triggers at the same time so they all shoot each other dead when she unexpectedly ducks. This circle-standing-all-bad-guys-shooting-each-other happens more than once. Not in some sort of dramatic set piece, but it seems that in the future the standard way to avoid being shot will involve ducking and waiting for all your adversaries to kill each other. It works amazingly well.
Ten minutes after the film opened I realised that my mouth had fallen open in sheer disbelief at how bad it is. Within half an hour I was punching myself in the face as a reaction to the awful, awful plotting and special effects. Towards the end, I was knocking my head against the seat in front of me in sheer despairing frustration at yet more terribly written, terribly delivered dialogue. Mere words cannot express the utter shitness of this film.
It ends with a dramatic fight between Milla and the main bad guy in which it is revealed he is a super-vampire (which contradicts a lot of what has already happened, but you’ll be used to that by the end of this film) in a dark room because he can see in the dark and she can’t (I don’t know why. This isn’t explained). Fortunately, Violet’s sword bursts into flame (once again, for no reason at all. Stuff happening just because is a reoccurring theme of this film) so she can see in the dark too. And then she kills him and it ends. Thank God.
As a collection of astonishingly cheap CGI, poor special effects, wooden acting, clunking and expository dialogue, unconvincing plotting and second-rate fight choreography this film might inspire a certain morbid curiosity in the same way that sticking your finger in a cucumber slicer might inspire some to wonder what it would be like. Don't be deceived. I saw this film so you don't have to. You have been duly warned. Many years ago, when I shared a house with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
godzuki and neilhist, we watched many, many terrible films. I've seen The Slumber Party Murders. I've seen The Warlords, Teenage Exorcist, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Deathstalker 1, 2, and 3. Ultraviolet is worse than all of these films. Put together. With the good bits removed.
According to Wikipedia, more than 30 minutes of the film was cut, rendering it utterly incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the book. I think that this may have been a good thing, as that means the audience have to sit through 30 minutes less of this utter bollocks.
{Update}
Some other opinions from the interweb:
'The worst film I've ever seen'
'The worst film I've ever seen'
'Worst film ever'
'Worst film of the year'
You’d be surprised. Unlike any of the above films, Ultraviolet isn’t awful, rotten, or poor. Ultraviolet is, in fact, utterly, unredeemably shit. Unlike any of the above films, which all had small but noticeable redeeming features, Ultraviolet has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It may well be the worst film I’ve ever seen in my life. Not in a hip, post-modern, ‘so bad it’s good’ sort of way, but in a ‘this is the worst film I’ve ever seen and I’m leaving the cinema’ sort of way. When the film started rolling, there were perhaps ten people in the cinema auditorium. By the time the film ended, there were only four left. More than half the audience left during the film. That should give you some idea. I was in the cinema when England were playing Ecuador in the World Cup. When a film about semi-naked female vampires cannot hold an audience of the sort of people who’d watch a semi-naked female vampire movie in preference to the World Cup, then you know there’s something seriously up with it.
I’d warn of plot spoilers, but there’s nothing to spoil. Really.
It is the future. You can tell it’s the future because everyone lives in a cheaply-CGI’d city and wears clothes which can change colour at will but otherwise look like something out of a mid-1990’s GAP catalogue. In the opening exposition (quite literally, the head bad guy talking to his minions saying “As you know, two hundred years ago…”, and none of them replying “As we already know this, why the hell are you telling us? Is the scriptwriter that bad?”) we learn that an experimental virus used to create super-soldiers had escaped into the population and created ‘Haemophages’, which is just a fancy name for vampires. Milla Jovovitcvh plays Violet, a vampire who is pretty ‘ultra’.
Can you see the clever thing they did with the character name and the title of the film? Can you? Well, that’s as clever as this film gets. The play on words between the title and the name of the lead character is the intellectual highlight of this worthless pile of cinematic ordure.
Like most movie vampires, the ones in Ultraviolet have impressive physical powers and healing, but unlike most movie vampires they do not seem to have any weaknesses to sunlight or garlic or, well, pretty much anything, really. There’s no downside to being a vampire – you never even see one having to drink blood. You’d think everyone would want to be one, but no. The human population seem terrified of them, for no apparent reason. Couple this with the astonishing virulence of the vampiric virus (you can contract it simply by having vampire body fluids touch your skin, never mind any of that old-fashioned blood-sucking. The only sucking round here is the film) and you’d suppose that it would spread like wildfire, but that’s not the case. Instead, vampires are on the brink of being wiped out and humans have discovered an ‘ultimate weapon’ which will wipe out all vampires forever.
Cue Milla Jovovitch fighting hordes of identikit faceless black clad goons who either attack her one by one (if she’s using wire-fu), or, if they have guns, who repeatedly stand round her in a perfect circle and all squeeze their triggers at the same time so they all shoot each other dead when she unexpectedly ducks. This circle-standing-all-bad-guys-shooting-each-other happens more than once. Not in some sort of dramatic set piece, but it seems that in the future the standard way to avoid being shot will involve ducking and waiting for all your adversaries to kill each other. It works amazingly well.
Ten minutes after the film opened I realised that my mouth had fallen open in sheer disbelief at how bad it is. Within half an hour I was punching myself in the face as a reaction to the awful, awful plotting and special effects. Towards the end, I was knocking my head against the seat in front of me in sheer despairing frustration at yet more terribly written, terribly delivered dialogue. Mere words cannot express the utter shitness of this film.
It ends with a dramatic fight between Milla and the main bad guy in which it is revealed he is a super-vampire (which contradicts a lot of what has already happened, but you’ll be used to that by the end of this film) in a dark room because he can see in the dark and she can’t (I don’t know why. This isn’t explained). Fortunately, Violet’s sword bursts into flame (once again, for no reason at all. Stuff happening just because is a reoccurring theme of this film) so she can see in the dark too. And then she kills him and it ends. Thank God.
As a collection of astonishingly cheap CGI, poor special effects, wooden acting, clunking and expository dialogue, unconvincing plotting and second-rate fight choreography this film might inspire a certain morbid curiosity in the same way that sticking your finger in a cucumber slicer might inspire some to wonder what it would be like. Don't be deceived. I saw this film so you don't have to. You have been duly warned. Many years ago, when I shared a house with
godzuki and neilhist, we watched many, many terrible films. I've seen The Slumber Party Murders. I've seen The Warlords, Teenage Exorcist, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Deathstalker 1, 2, and 3. Ultraviolet is worse than all of these films. Put together. With the good bits removed.According to Wikipedia, more than 30 minutes of the film was cut, rendering it utterly incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the book. I think that this may have been a good thing, as that means the audience have to sit through 30 minutes less of this utter bollocks.
{Update}
Some other opinions from the interweb:
'The worst film I've ever seen'
'The worst film I've ever seen'
'Worst film ever'
'Worst film of the year'
