There's no way around it, "UltraViolet" sucks. While watching it, I was doing my best to like it, but nothing worked. Halfway through the movie, I gave up, and just sat there waiting for it to end. I was really looking forward to this movie, it's a shame that it ended up being such a huge disappointment.
A few years ago, I heard about a movie called "Equilibrium." It played in a couple of theaters in Miami, but I didn't bother with it. When it was available on DVD, there was some buzz on the Internet about it, so I went ahead and rented it. As it turned out, I loved the movie. It starred Christian Bale and Taye Diggs, and it was set in an Orwellian future where crime is practically nonexistent, but that comes at a price; human emotion is taken away by drugs that the government forces the people to take every day. The movie was written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, and I was looking forward to whatever his next project would be. That project was "UltraViolet."
When I heard that Milla Jovovich was cast in the leading role for "UltraViolet," I was thrilled. The new film from a writer/director whose work I really admired would star one of my favorite women on earth. I've been a fan of Milla Jovovich for years, way before she was in "The Fifth Element." I remember her from "Dazed and Confused," "Chaplin," "Kuffs," and even "Return to the Blue Lagoon." Most people don't know that she has a couple of CDs out. Her music isn't your typical top 40 pop music. Rather than tell you about it, I suggest you check out her first CD, The Divine Comedy. Her PeopleTree work that came afterwards is harder to find, but you can find some of her other songs in movie soundtracks, my favorite being her songs from the movie "Dummy."
Kurt Wimmer writing and directing a new movie starring Milla Jovovich, it would have to kick ass, right? Wrong! There were three things that should have let me know before seeing the movie that it would suck. For one thing, it was rated PG-13. A movie like this should be rated R. It's possible that Kurt Wimmer set out to make an R-rated movie and was later told to edit it down to PG-13, which could have been what got him upset, but that's just speculation. Secondly, I read an interview with Milla Jovovich where she was asked why Kurt Wimmer wasn't happy with the film. I didn't know that he was unhappy with the film, and Milla had a short, dismissive answer, something about how she hasn't spoken to the director. That tells me that there was probably some studio interference. Finally, the movie wasn't screened for critics. Typically, film critics see the movie several days, or even weeks, in advance so they can have the review written and ready to be published the day the movie is released. There was no such screening for "UltraViolet," and movies that aren't screened for critics are usually movies that studios don't have faith in. They assume that the reviews will all be bad, and it's better to have no reviews at all than a whole lotta bad reviews.
Despite all that, I saw "UltraViolet" anyway, and like I said, I was very disappointed. There are SOME good things in the movie, though. Milla Jovovich looks great, the action sequences are cool, and the fight choreography is fun to watch, but that's it, and there are too many bad things that overshadow the good. The story is convoluted, the dialogue is atrocious, and we're supposed to care about the relationship between the main character and the kid, but I didn't care at all. I felt no emotional connection to them whatsoever. Also, I didn't realize till more than halfway through the film that Milla Jovovich's character was a vampire. I knew that there were some vampires in the movie, but I didn't understand why. Then when I realized that Milla Jovovich's character was a vampire, I was completely taken aback. I was just totally confused, and I didn't care enough to try to figure it all out.
Maybe when it's released on DVD, there will be a Director's Cut that Kurt Wimmer will be happy with, and it'll explain everything. Perhaps it will even be a much better film. All I know is that what I saw in the theater was a piece of shit. There was some eye candy, with the fight scenes, the cool visuals, and Milla Jovovich flashing her midriff throughout, but other than that, there was nothing good about this movie.
Scale of 1-10: 3