Customer Reviews

Ultraviolet (Rated) (Bilingual Edition) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This movie is terrible. I liked Jovovich a lot in the 5th Element, and I generally like this genre, so I had some hopes that this movie would at least be entertaining. But the acting is wooden, the dialogue is tortured and the plot is frankly just derivative crap. It's obvious that the writing here was sub-par and even the action doesn't cover that. The first line is "My name is Violet and I was born into a world you may not understand" and there's a reason we don't understand it--it makes very little sense, especially as it is told in this movie. And frankly it's impossible to care enough to try. Why is her superpower (aside from some generic martial arts) apparently her ability to change the colour of her clothes and hair? I know she worked/works as a model in real life but it's hardly initimidating to be attacked by fashion. Also, the computer generated special effects are pretty sub-par, despite what the people marketing the movie will try to tell you about it being in the league of Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow. It's very hard to suspend your disbelief that she is really riding her motorcycle around on the roof when you can clearly see she is not. They would have done better to rely on more stunt people than software here. Probably men and some women can enjoy parts of this movie purely because of Jovovich running around in skimpy outfits, but any appeal that has will be dampened by the constant insults to your intelligence and the jarring, ridiculous lines she has to deliver. Don't bother with this one.

I was simply looking for something to entertain me.
Ultraviolet did just that.

Basic storyline, great action scenes and colorful.
I found it entertaining, fun to watch.
I found it eye candy and there is a definate different style, strangely it reminds me a bit of that movie with Christian Bale that flew under the radar but was oh so good (Equilibrium)

It has been added to my collection, and strangely enough I prefer it over Aeon flux (which was still good)

Technology in video games is consistently making an effort to look more realistic to game players. Ultraviolet is a motion picture that seemingly makes an effort to look more like a video game. I'm sort of indifferent to that direction I suppose, but it's a point I still think is important to make. Ultraviolet is visually unique and the pace of the film doesn't quit. You can tell that director Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium) doesn't really want us to believe any of this is real as he is striving to create a dystopian world that would exist otherwise only within a comic book or Japanese animation. Ultraviolet does indeed require a vast imagination, but for some of us that's not such a bad thing.

Ultraviolet is a chase movie about Violet (Milla Jovovich) who, among many others in her time (in the late 21st century), is infected with a virus that gives her super human powers. Violet is part of an underground terrorist group that exists to fight against the resident dictatorship. Soon enough, Violet steals a child (Cameron Bright) from the government and finds out he may be the cure to this disease that allows her to be invincible and be really good at driving a motorcycle. The terrorist group she is in with decides the child must die and so Violet begins running from everyone with the child. With some more twists and turns Ultraviolet leads up to a formulaic showdown and more dramatic and unrealistic fight scenes than you could possible imagine.

Ultraviolet is an excessive mess. The fight scenes are perplexing and miserable to watch, not to mention completely unrealistic, which is something I can almost forgive. Ultraviolet is the ultimate example of over-stylized filmmaking. In the action genre, the viewer should probably never be aware that a fight scene is choreographed while viewing it, but if a fine line exists between dancing and fighting then Ultraviolet is balancing very carefully upon it and it is doing so right next to Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin. The story also seemed jumbled and confusing. I really wasn't sure what was happening until the very end and even then I had some questions that I wasn't even motivated to have answered. The dialogue was delivered stoically and isn't very good to begin with. The music was as distracting as the visuals. Other than that it was a visually original film and I guess that is where it earns a star for me. Well, that and Milla's bare bottom.

Personally, I believe Milla Jovovich is great, even in this because she handles the 'tough' role really well. Cameron Bright also did a good job in his role. In this film I'm going to hold the director entirely responsible for bringing together this mess. `Ultraviolet' is something that I'd expect from Uwe Boll. The film relies completely on CGI and still manages to fall short of expectations. The movie bears some resemblance to `Equilibrium,' like the art of the Gun-Kata and how society is stratified. If you haven't seen `Equilibrium,' you must. It is Kurt Wimmer's greatest movie of all time.

On this film Wimmer thought that the pretty colors are supposed to distract us from the incoherent script? It didn't work on this film. `The Sky Captain'-style post-processing just makes everything look blurry. (And why is it applied to only half the shots?) Just about everything in this movie is borrowed from something else, and it's slapped together on the thinnest of premises and tarted up with lots of CGI. When there's a break from the ridiculously-choreographed action sequences, you're bludgeoned with nonsensical subplots and indescribably awful dialogue until the heroine met the villain in their final showdown.

Anyways, I think that there is no justification in watching this film, spare yourself the pain and re-watch `The Fifth Element' or any one of the "Resident Evil's" instead.

Nasty...I can't say it any other way. This was a very bad bad movie and I would'nt recomend it to anyone. I like Milla Jovovich and most of her movies I will usually buy, even if they are'nt particularly good, but this is the exception. Like I'm sure it's been mentioned previously this movie was kinda like watching someone else play a video game for two hours. Mila plays our hero, a vampire-virus-mutated "Hemophages" (don't ask) living in the 21st century. The plot basically has her trying to steal a super weapon off some bad guy named "Daxus" who intendes to use it on her and her people. That's pretty much it... Her performance is dry expressionless, the movie has no real story to speak of. It's one long boring CGI chase through a non descript futuristic soft focus city... Don't bother with this one.

This movie borrows heavily

From others of its type,

and comic books and video games,

but it's not worth the hype

A futuristic setting

A totalitarian regime

A dictator's lust for power

Is essentially the theme

I've seen something just like it

in Vendetta with a "V"

One hero dares to stand up to

The rogue Arch-Ministry

A disease becomes pandemic

Your blood cells it devours

Victims turn into "vampires"

With extra-special powers

But none so rare as Violet

Whose eyes can see the sun

An expert in "Gun Kata" skills

and any type of gun

She infiltrates a guarded lab

And steals a death device

That's capable of wiping out

Vampires in a trice

Just like Pandora and the box

She can't resist, and peeks

And finds out that the weapon

May have something she seeks

Action packed with CGI

The plot is sadly lacking

Rent to look at Milla J.

And then send this one packing

Amanda Richards

I sat down to this with low expectations and it certainly didn't disappoint. I didn't expect the film to be emotionally engaging or that it be brilliantly plotted.

I did expect it to deliver well executed action and have a coherent story.
Actually all we get is Milla Jovovich's bared midriff(which the camera lingers on at every opportunity)and well choreographed, but badly thought out, combat scenes that would seem barely credible in a computer game, finally some chase sequences so poorly rendered that you would be forgiven for thinking they'd actually lifted them whole from the aforementioned video game.

The most annoying thing is the complete absence of internal logic in basics like the fight scenes: in one scene 20+ guards run at her with swords(why are they using swords?), she has guns but fights them with her own swords. In the next scene 20+ guards run toward her with guns. Why? If you had a gun and were faced with a 'killing machine' who'd already killed 350 of your mates you would stand at the side of the room and shoot them(probably hide behind something too), unless of course you were trying to get yourself killed in a movie.

This is the sort of film where the action becomes boring very quickly because there is no sense of danger or tension, you never feel there is the slightest danger that the lead character won't get to fight 'the end of level baddie'.
This comes from the school of film making that suggests that, as long as you keep the screen full of things happening, it doesn't matter what those things are. It DOES matter.

Good action films don't have to challenge the intellect but they should not insult it. This does.

talk about a pointless movie.i mean,i love Milla as much as the next
guy,but even she can't save this disaster.she looks hot and she's in
great shape.she's just in the wrong movie.i could only take so much of
her character,V(Short for Violet)going up against increasingly
overwhelming odds time after time and emerging with barely a scrape.and
that's mostly all this movie is,in my mind:a collection of action/fight
sequences,with pretty much no coherent plot.i didn't particularly like
Either of the first two Resident Evil movies,but this is worse than
both of them.i don't mind saying i was bored out of my skull.even the
action sequences become boring,once you see the same thing over and
over again.talk about a train wreck.this movie really made my head
hurt.i'm sorry i lost 94 minutes of my life for this thing.check out
Resident Evil:Extinction(on the big screen)instead.anyway,for me
Ultraviolet is a definite 1/5

I wanted SO much to like Ultraviolet,but it is plagued by poor editing and subplots that are either unfinished or that
simply go nowhere.It is all look but no substance.The movie starts with Ultra telling us"I was born into a world,you may not understand".Truer words were never spoken.
The story concerns a research organization that alters a virus that has been around for centuries.The intention is to create stronger and faster soldiers;instead they create a contagion.We are told by a voice over by Ultra that she contracted the disease when her husband was killed(blood splattered on her),which in turn killed her unborn infant.As a result she fled underground and formed a resistance.A few scenes later we get our first plot contradiction,as she enters the research facility under the guise of being a courier to pick up a package.She gets the suitcase containing the "weapon" but her cover is blown when the real courier shows up.As she fights her way out security identifies her as one who has been confined to the facility in the past for EXPERIMENTATION and whose pregnancy was PURPOSEFULLY terminated(!?).She was human at one time but is now a hemophage like the rest of the resistance.
The movie continues as she heads back to resistance headquarters and at one point stops to look inside the white case she carries.She discovers the "weapon" is a young boy.Her priorities,for some reason we're not privy to,change and she suddenly becomes a protective mother;totally opposite to the character we've so far seen.She spirits the boy away from the resistance leaders and turns to a fellow hemophage by the name of Garth for help.For some reason which again we are not privy to,Ultra needs a blood transfusion and Garth,who has pointy teeth,says it's lucky she didn't "convert" with her light exposure(?).After testing the boy he tells Ultra he doesn't have "vampiral anti-genetic blood"(??);in fact he is useless to them.So Garth is a ...vampire too?While there the boy writes some chemical symbols on a magazine and Garth files it away for future reference(as we shall see).At this point there seems to be some kind of feelings between Garth and Ultra but that sub plot is not furthered in any way.The boy apparently is dying and when Daxus,the head of the research facility,contacts Ultra to get the boy back she finally relents when Daxus reveals he is the father.She takes him to a mall to leave him there but she again cannot bring herself to go through with it but the boy runs away and is caught by her own resistance.She fights and succeeds in freeing him from their grasp.Daxus finally talks Ultra into bringing the boy directly to the research facility and she shows up;but unbeknownst to Daxus,as a hologram.Daxus reveals that the boy really contains an anti-human vuris.The hemophages are no longer a threat to him so he's created a new menace people will line up at his doors to get the antidote for.It doesn't take long for Daxus to realize Ultra is not real but by this time she is long gone with the boy.They end up in a playground where the boy in a short time finally dies.With a teary Ultra kneeling over him,she is killed by Daxus who has followed her via a tracking device in the boy.Next thing we see is Ultra waking up having been revived by Garth.We also now see for the first time that Ultra has vampire teeth!? Garth is also NOW suddenly convinced that the
writing the boy did on that mag cover he stashed away,is a cure for the hemophages!? Ultra is not moved as she thinks the boy is still alive.Of course the showdown has to happen between Daxus and Ultra and a battle royale it is.During it we learn that Daxus has hemophage blood also so the fight goes neck in neck until Ultra finally triumphs.She and the boy are united.The boy WAS alive because the hemophage cells in her tears helped to transform him also into a hemophage.
I have left alot out but I think you get the general idea.As the movie progresses the plot incongruities make things go from bad to worse as one can easily lose track of what is happening.Characters are doing things from motivations only known to them.
The resistance movement lives in a spiral tipped building.They own the first half while a chinese gang,Ultra battles,owns the top portion.And after the battle,how she gets from the rooftop to a street level area with the boy in hand is not explained.Things like this are thrown out at you continually.
Even the special effects have their lax moments.During a chase scene on a motorcycle Ultra is travelling first alongside an office building then straight up until she reaches the roof.While she is in midair her image gets shaky which effectively ruins the power of the moment and of the special effect itself.
I know nothing of the history or creation of this film but I am certain there was alot of footage that got cut out here and what an obvious hatchet job was done too.It is like a puzzle that not only got reassembled improperly but with pieces missing!Either studio pressure,budget constraints or both got this thing whittled down,but at the price of the integrity of the picture.What a disappointment to such a promising property.
For those interested the picture and sound quality are excellent here.The special features contained therein consist of the trailer,a 30 m "UV Protection-The Making of UltraViolet" short and optional commentary to the movie by star Milla Jovovich.
Give this one a definite pass.

First off I would like to say that the only reason I gave this movie 1 star is because there is no such thing as 0 stars. This movie was a dam joke, and the fact that it was suppose to be taken seriously is insulting. People should have been paid to watch this rather then pay for it. The main character is a female version of rambo which could have been cool if she didn't kill what seemed like an entire city with her bare hands. There is a point in this movie were guards armed with automatic rifles run up to her to get killed rather then shoot her from a far. The story and idea of this movie is less then unbarable. I will be forever bothered by the fact that I will never get that time back.