Ultraviolet 2/5 reviewed by Mike
If there’s one thing in life I love, it’s comic books—I’ve been an avid comic fan for as long as I can remember. One of the biggest travesties of American culture is—-to me, anyways-—the stereotype that comics are only about costumed freaks punching each other senseless, and that only kids would find them of value. Truth be told, the comic medium is a vast one, full of richly varied stories—many that are not about superheroes at all. The comic medium is no longer just for kids, and by that I mean that the medium is a mature one, capable of doing things no other medium can do, and many creators use this to tell great stories in exciting ways that no other medium can duplicate.
What does this have to do with Ultraviolet? Well, this movie lets you know right from the opening credits that it’s trying to be a "comic book movie," by showing images of comic book covers. Unfortunately, this movie stands for everything that is stereotypically bad about comics.
The plot itself is almost unintelligible. Apparently, there is a race of Superhumans called "hemophages," (of which there is only about a half dozen) who are at war with the humans. But nowhere in the movie do you get a sense of this war. No one seems to be at war. No one seems to be fighting. Even though everyone knows where the hemophages are, nothing is done about them. Doesn’t seem all that serious of a war if you ask me.
About a third of the way through the movie, they start calling the hemophages vampires. No one knows why—-they certainly don’t have any characteristics of vampires except for two sharp teeth. But they never bite anyone, they don’t crave blood, they have no problem with daylight... there is nothing at all vampiric about these people. I could go on explaining all the logical problems with this movie, but there isn’t the space. Suffice to say that this movie never makes sense. And not only is the story full of holes, but its scripted so badly, that I was cringing throughout most of the film. There is absolutely no characterization—-there is no motivation for any character to do anything—-the characters are continuously doing random things that don’t make sense with what we know about them--every line is a cliché—its just a big mess of a bad movie.
Even with all this said, its possible that it could still come out as a fun, cheesy action movie. But that’s not possible either. The effects are horrendous. It looks like the CGI was made by a kid using a crappy demo version of cheap rendering software. When your special effects look like an episode of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” its hard to keep any kind of believability going. Some of the fights are cool, though. And Milla Jovovitch does look nice. It's almost a good action flick--but allow me an example of what I mean: In some movies, sometimes it’s better to not show a fight, but to show the aftermath of one-—a door opens and the hero is surrounded by bodies—-that can be cool sometimes. But this movie does that exact thing for almost every fight. So many times I was like, "oh, finally, a cool fight," and then its cuts to something else and you just hear the sound of the fight. It’s like they couldn’t afford to actually film them.
I was hoping for so much more from this director-—who had previously done a favorite of mine, "Equilibrium"-—but it seems us comic fans will have to depend on word of mouth to get people to believe that comics are not all childish, pointless drivel.
-Mike
What does this have to do with Ultraviolet? Well, this movie lets you know right from the opening credits that it’s trying to be a "comic book movie," by showing images of comic book covers. Unfortunately, this movie stands for everything that is stereotypically bad about comics.
The plot itself is almost unintelligible. Apparently, there is a race of Superhumans called "hemophages," (of which there is only about a half dozen) who are at war with the humans. But nowhere in the movie do you get a sense of this war. No one seems to be at war. No one seems to be fighting. Even though everyone knows where the hemophages are, nothing is done about them. Doesn’t seem all that serious of a war if you ask me.
About a third of the way through the movie, they start calling the hemophages vampires. No one knows why—-they certainly don’t have any characteristics of vampires except for two sharp teeth. But they never bite anyone, they don’t crave blood, they have no problem with daylight... there is nothing at all vampiric about these people. I could go on explaining all the logical problems with this movie, but there isn’t the space. Suffice to say that this movie never makes sense. And not only is the story full of holes, but its scripted so badly, that I was cringing throughout most of the film. There is absolutely no characterization—-there is no motivation for any character to do anything—-the characters are continuously doing random things that don’t make sense with what we know about them--every line is a cliché—its just a big mess of a bad movie.
Even with all this said, its possible that it could still come out as a fun, cheesy action movie. But that’s not possible either. The effects are horrendous. It looks like the CGI was made by a kid using a crappy demo version of cheap rendering software. When your special effects look like an episode of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” its hard to keep any kind of believability going. Some of the fights are cool, though. And Milla Jovovitch does look nice. It's almost a good action flick--but allow me an example of what I mean: In some movies, sometimes it’s better to not show a fight, but to show the aftermath of one-—a door opens and the hero is surrounded by bodies—-that can be cool sometimes. But this movie does that exact thing for almost every fight. So many times I was like, "oh, finally, a cool fight," and then its cuts to something else and you just hear the sound of the fight. It’s like they couldn’t afford to actually film them.
I was hoping for so much more from this director-—who had previously done a favorite of mine, "Equilibrium"-—but it seems us comic fans will have to depend on word of mouth to get people to believe that comics are not all childish, pointless drivel.
-Mike
posted by Hankinstien at 7:58 PM
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