Ultraviolet
                                                                                                       
Director: Kurt Wimmer
Year: 2005
Rating: 5.5
The strange thing is that I saw this when it was first released in 2006 and if I recall correctly, I quite liked it. Now I am just sort of befuddled as to why. Maybe I was just enamored with Milla Jovovich at the time. Wasn't everyone after The Fifth Element and Residential Evil? Now with some distance, I can watch this film without Milla colored glasses and I have to admit that it is a stupendous mess. A very pretty one though. Apparently, that can't be entirely blamed on the director Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium) because the studio took the film away and took a hatchet to it. The poor guy didn't get to direct another film for fourteen years and that was a remake of Children of the Corn.



The version I just watched is called the Extended version - they threw back seven minutes of it and I have no idea what seven minutes those are. They didn't give the film any more cohesion or common sense though. But I don't think that was really the point of the film. It is all about the way it looks, how cool certain scenes are, the colors and sets. Damn, common sense. And on that level it succeeds - it is a mash of CGI, animation and reality. It looks like nothing that I have seen. He was a director who took a chance and I respect that - in this case sadly it didn't pay off. Maybe someday, the film will be restored as he wanted and it will be called a work of genius. I will gladly take a look. There is a ton of imagination at work here but it all seems fairly empty headed.



It takes place in the future after a virus was created that turned sections of the population into hemophages. It gives them vampiric teeth and powers though they are not blood-suckers. But echoing what happened to the Jews in Germany, they first have to wear arm bands identifying themselves, then were rounded up and put in concentration camps and soon no one heard from them any longer. A few have escaped though and have formed an underground terrorist/freedom fighter group.  They learn that the authoritarian government has a secret weapon and want a briefcase transferred by a discreet messenger. They send in their best agent to replace the messenger and get the briefcase and bring it to their base. This is Violet Song (Milla) who is a killing machine. This leads to about a 40-minute set piece of massive CGI, animation and imagination. It is cool on one level and absurd and ridiculous on another. As likely to give you a headache as a thrill.



When she gets the briefcase to headquarters after lowering the human population by dozens, it is opened and inside is a young boy (Cameron Bright). He apparently has been lab built with antigens in his body that will wipe out the hemophages. Or so we think. Violet finds she has a mother instinct and saves the boy and goes on the run from everyone. The boy though only has hours to live and so does she. Her clock is running down. That first set-piece must have taken up most of the budget because not a lot happens till the end. But great imaginary sets of buildings, skyscrapers, subways, pay-phones and more. She is able to change her hair color and outfit at will and keeps bringing out of nowhere these deadly weapons - a sword seems to be her favorite instrument of death but the automatics have their fun as well.  It is different. I will give it that. The critics hated it, it died at the box office and most people reviews stomp on it like a bug. And I can see why.