Stuff for Dads

  Ultraviolet (DVD)

Starring: Milla Jovovich.

Rated: 15.

Story: It's the future. A virus has turned lots of people into vampires with superhuman powers. The totalitarian authorities are intent on hunting down and destroying the infected. The vampires aren't too thrilled. One of the vampires, Violet (Jovovich), manages to annoy both sides. Everyone tries to kill her. She chops them to bits with a big sword.

Comments: Ultraviolet is a Matrix wannabe that's totally lacking in coherence and plausibility. There's some some excellent CGI and plenty of action but even this begins to pale after the third time Violet is entirely surrounded by hapless henchmen and yet manages to turn them into sushi. That she does this without a drop of blood being spilled is somewhat disconcerting.

It's very hard to care about any of it by the end.

To add insult to tedium, there's some anti-Christian imagery in that the main bad guy has the title of Vice-Cardinal and works in a Crucifix-shaped building. This is about as deep as the critique of organised religion gets, however, so it seems included just to offend rather than contribute to any kind of debate. It's on the intellectual level of name-calling. Not really big or clever, just irritating.

On top of everything else, Jovovich's performance is less than stellar. She's not helped by dialogue that frequently doesn't stretch beyond, 'Hey!?'

Conclusion: A collection of fights and chases shoved together at random. Some of them are OK.

Explosions: Not many.
Swords: Plenty.
Guns: An entire extra dimension full of them.
Improbable events and plot twists: Another entire extra dimension full of them.
Preferred tactic of henchmen: Standing in a circle and shooting each other. (Sigh.)

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action, film review, quick, sci-fi

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