Part 3: Ultraviolet (2006) Retrospective - Conclusion

 

Part 2:

 

Last time, I examined the greatest strength of Ultraviolet (Milla Jovovich as the main character), as well as some of the good and the not so good in terms of worldbuilding, effects, and action, but the problem I’m going to address next is one I don’t think anyone can argue with, even if they’re a fan of the film like I am.

I don’t know if the lore made any more sense in Wimmer’s original two-hour R-rated cut, but I didn’t realize that one of the reasons I felt compelled to rewatch the movie so many times to understand it better as a kid/teen was because of how incomprehensible it gets. Too much information is clumsily spat out by three random guys after that first action scene, mere minutes after the opening credits, one of whom gets shot because he gets blood on his bare hands, and then Violet gives us a voiceover backstory for how the virus got out and started the war. Then, we get introduced to the main villain, and the story gets underway from there, but some of the dialogue is just utterly reprehensible. The theatrical cut doesn’t even provide as much voiceover explanation, making it even more confusing. There’s clever filmmaking where you let the audience discover important things for themselves and don’t spoon feed them information, and then there’s poor filmmaking where you don’t explain anything and leave the audience too bewildered to care.

This movie ricochets from cool to crap so many times so fast. In one skirmish, Daxus tells his men to switch to night vision; instead of seeing, we hear a bunch of fighting, then thermal red lights come on, illuminating all of his men, dead, and the hemophages standing there in triumph. It looks very cool, very sinister, and makes you wonder what the next move will be for Daxus. He ducks into a side room, opens a cup of sealed coffee that’s self heating (a fun enough little gag, and another example of interesting future tech), and reveals to Nerva he has his own special abilities, for he’s able to shoot Nerva’s three comrades before they can even raise their own weapons. They’re shot in ways that make them react as if they’re doing the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil thing, before individually dropping dead, leaving just Nerva standing. It’s kind of dumb and not as clever as Wimmer probably thought it was.

What many people find plainly bad about Ultraviolet I find peculiarly bad which increases its entertainment value, for me. Remember, I like movies that are so bad they’re good, and in ways, I would classify Ultraviolet as one of these, but it’s such a mixed bag, because there are aspects I find genuinely great, and aspects I find horribly misguided, and again, sometimes it yo-yos between great and garbage within the same scene! Here’s another prime example: Violet is driving with Six slouched on the passenger seat, and she says to him, “Haven’t you been paying attention? Killing is what I do. It’s what I’m good at.” Milla delivers the line pretty well—well enough they used it in the trailer, even—and I think it’s cheeky and badass at the same time. But then, she keeps talking, and the shot changes to focus on her face straight on through the windshield, and as she stares right at the audience, she says, “I am a titan. A monolith. Nothing can stop me.” That’s…pretty corny. A monolith? Like from 2001: A Space Odyssey? Milla’s delivery of this line isn’t as badass, but I mean, I don’t think anyone could’ve delivered that line straight and made more out of it than she did.

Sometimes, bad dialogue can’t be salvaged, but mediocre dialogue can be elevated by stellar actors. Milla is talented enough to at least make some of the one-liners and retorts work, but let’s branch over to some of the other cast members of Ultraviolet, and wonder, was Kurt Wimmer maybe not quite skilled enough to handle a production of this scope, and that’s why some of the performances are so stilted and strange? Sebastien Andrieu as Nerva isn’t very good; he was a model, and has no acting credits on IMDB after this film. I’ll give Cameron Bright as Six a pass because he was just a kid, and his strangeness is less to do with his acting choices and more to do with the nature of his character. He’s in constant danger and needs rescuing on more than one occasion. He’s also sick and dying and radioactive (?), so he’s slow, lays down a lot, and is nearly lifeless at points. William Fichtner is solid, but his character Garth doesn’t add too much to the story, he just gives Violet an ally in a world otherwise filled with enemies.

Nick Chinlund as Daxus ranges from appropriately evil to campy to annoying to dull, but like Jovovich, he makes the most of some of his bad dialogue. His character is a germaphobe, which fits for this disease filled world, but I really don’t find the twist that he also happens to be the same scientist who unleashed hemoglophagia in the first place necessary or logical. His character at no point acts or feels like a former man of science. The final battle between him and Violet is a bit brief but, again, topped up with cool ideas, from flaming swords in the dark to Violet slicing him in half at the conclusion. Another reason I would’ve loved to see the original R-rated cut: it definitely feels like the action could’ve (and should’ve) been bloodier at multiple points, but it isn’t the most egregious PG-13 censoring of a sci-fi/action film I’ve come across. 

There are a few supporting roles, but the cast isn’t really that big, which makes some of those minor characters stand out worse. Even though she only says like three lines, the courier woman who shows up after Violet has already infiltrated the “Blood Bank” has some of the worst line delivery I’ve ever heard. Apparently, she was played by one of Milla’s stunt doubles, but still, couldn’t they have overdubbed her lines or rerecorded them or done another take? Something, anything? Violet frequently fights ArchMinistry soldiers who wear all black tactical gear and say nothing. At one point she faces down hundreds of them, reminding me of future criticisms of comic book movies like The Avengers and Justice League with the heroes defeating faceless armies of stock enemies. I’ll at least give Ultraviolet credit for having the Stormtrooper-esque soldiers played by real stuntmen/actors, as well as having Violet defeat all of them singlehandedly. What a badass!

In many ways, Ultraviolet comes off as a 2000s product for teenage boys, and for this teenage boy, it was a thrill. I was so into it that I showed it to all my friends, watched all the DVD special features, including the commentary by Milla Jovovich, and went on to watch the Resident Evil movies (at that time, there were only three), but for as awesome and action-packed as those movies were, to me they still weren’t quite as unique or as thought provoking as Ultraviolet. Even twenty years later, I can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like it, but I certainly can see the influence of the aforementioned zombie video game adaptations, as well as The Matrix, Underworld, and even Aeon Flux, which came out the year before. I probably haven’t sold anyone who didn’t know anything about this movie on watching it, and I don’t know whether or not I would wholeheartedly recommend it to just anyone, either.

As I wrap up this epic retrospective, I’ll say this: Ultraviolet is a concept rife with possibility wrapped in an incomplete package stumbling along, and for all the nostalgia I have from watching it at a formative age and forming my first celebrity crush, I find it deeply flawed, yet still entertaining as hell. Who cares if it doesn’t always make sense or if the action is sometimes derivative or if the quality of the effects varies? I find it fun in a way that only something produced in the 2000s can be. It took risks, and even if they didn’t all pay off, that’s worth commending, especially from the perspective of our modern cinematic landscape where the effects-heavy-mid-budget sci-fi/action film has basically gone extinct, and every superhero movie is a pre-existing IP. Who knows? Maybe one day, somehow, Ultraviolet will return...