2006-03-14
Ultra Review
I had to include this mostly for my friends Jerm, Julia, Meadows, and Dotson....

This is for those that suffered in silence with me...more like laughter.

These are reviews for Ultra Violet mostly from Rotten Tomatoes.com

This first one is my favorite..

"If you want to break up with your significant other, take him/her to this turd."


"This nearly incomprehensible guilty pleasure is actually a great deal of fun."
-- Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

"The adventures of Catwoman, Elektra, Lara Croft and Aeon Flux were positively Homeric compared to this simple-minded Hi-Def tedium..."

"Ultraviolet will be studied with great interest in the future - not for its quality or its artistic merit, but rather to discover how a turd like this was made."

"The real blood war is between this movie and the slightly better Aeon Flux, which Wimmer plagiarizes as freely as Equilibrium plagiarized Fahrenheit 451 and The Matrix."

"Crank your brain to its lowest possible idle and you'll still overthink Ultraviolet." Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly

"Although it masquerades as a futuristic action-thriller, Ultraviolet functions best as a multi-million dollar commercial for Milla Jovovich's personal trainer."

"If you have no problem with an experience that feels like an adrenaline shot administered directly to your brain, then this is the place to start."

"Pic is hermetically sealed in a synthetic wrapping that's so total -- Sony's top-flight high-def cameras, visibly low-budget CG work, exceptionally hackneyed and imitative action and dialogue --that it arrives a nearly lifeless film."
-- Robert Koehler, Variety

"None of the actors is really any good -- though some have been impressive elsewhere -- but it would be unjust to single them out for failing to rise above the material; what would be remarkable is if anyone could."

"Has filmmaking really become this cynical, or is it just me?"

"It's slick, sexy and utter crap."

"Ultraviolet wants desperately to be a provocative, high-concept action thriller. It is apparently trying to say something about fear and terrorism, paranoia and racism. But it looks more like a shampoo commercial."

"The tale, beginning with narrated flashbacks that make it curiously seem like a sequel, essentially is an excuse for a seemingly endless series of ultraviolet, uh, ultraviolent, action scenes."

"Wimmer is so brazen that he doesn't even bother to pretend that there's an original concept here: all his ideas are borrowed from other movies that borrowed from other movies that borrowed from The Matrix, and he doesn't care who knows it."

"It's not bad enough to be funny, but it's not without its moments. Most of those come when Jovovich, not the best with a catch-phrase, answers some challenge with a put-down she should have practiced more in between personal trainer sessions."


"The bad guys stride through spotless corriders in buildings where weirdly calm disembodied female voices say things like "Switching to emergency backup lighting system." If only I could have found the button for the emergency back-up better movie system."

"It's well known that writer/director Kurt Wimmer hates movie critics. Ultraviolet is the reason why."

"Wimmer borrows all his best ideas from other movies...then spackles over his half-assed plot with a shiny aesthetic."

"... feels incomplete, as though the production ran out of time, money, or both."

"The violence is presented in such a childish fashion, that it has all the impact of a Pokemon battle."

"It's a banner year for bad vampire flicks, so Ultraviolet is truly damned by this faint praise: It's not the worst."

"Great action... but unfortunately, the characters had to open their mouths. That's when Ultraviolet becomes ultra vapid."

"OH MY! Ultraviolet made Aeon look like an Oscar Winner"

"I am thinking about starting to tell everybody that this was a really good movie just so that they will go see it and see what I had to sit through. I don't think people really believe me when I say how bad it was. The writing, the plot, the acting, and especially the action sequences were just so terrible, I cant even begin to describe them. It got to the point that after every action scene, then entire theater would just bust out laughing hysterically. It was a joke. Truly one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life."
finally one from IMDB

I just cut to the funny part:

...Also baffling is the set design. A mix of Anime influences and familiar futuristic trimmings, the sets in "Ultraviolet" look more like Studio 54 leftovers, with a touch of Hype Williams arrogance and Sci-Fi Channel tackiness tossed in for good measure. And Wimmer makes sure all the costumes match the colors of these sets, further amping the unintentional hilarity of the combat set-pieces, which come dangerously close to looking like an incredibly expensive deodorant commercial.

It comes to a point where "Ultraviolet" doesn't know what kind of film it wants to be. Wimmer throws in some weepy emotional content in the relationship between Violet and the boy, but it's melodramatic in all the wrong ways, and kills the little flow the picture has. Wimmer soon shrugs and gives himself over to complete camp by the end, which features Violet dueling with the villain using flaming swords. Meant to shake action conventions, it looks more like a Hawaiian luau gone horribly awry.

Kurt Wimmer certainly is a distinctive visionary, but if "Ultraviolet" demonstrates anything it would be that his farthest reaches of imagination might not always translate properly to the big screen.

And here is one from yours truly... "Fema officials looked like they tried to help this film...as Wimmer somehow took a bad movie idea and made it disasteriously worse. ..where is my disaster relief from watching this movie?"

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