ULTRAVIOLET by jaiskizzy

from the makers of equilibrium comes this femme fatale flick that feels videogame-ish and with a plot that goes something like: in a world you may not understand... there are these hemophages, you see, and they are like vampires and they have superhuman capabilities, and the normal humans want them eradicated. violet is one of them, and so she infiltrates a lab and steals the weapon which will supposedly put an end to the hemophages but it turns out it is just a boy and violet decides to protect him against her fellow hemophages who want him dead. ah screw the plot.

i liked the aeon flux cartoon on mtv. i hated the live action aeon flux movie. why? because it failed to capture the essence that made the cartoon great: good storyline, good action. i mean, isnt that what all action movies should have? if you cant have both, at least pump up the action juice to compensate for the flawed plot (because less action and more story aint gonna cut as a good action movie). that's what ultraviolet did. they avoided the usual mistake of sacrificing the action for plot development. with a plot the viewers wont care about understanding anyway, focus on the real meat of the matter right? the shooting, the fighting, the swordplay, the special effects, and it worked for me. not much, but enough to say that it is a better movie than aeon flux. still there were boring moments that got past the cutting room. especially those that only had violet and six in them.

take for example the matrix. why is that movie so good? great story, great action. even when neo's already doing kicks in bullet time, you're still rooting for him out of care. in ultraviolet, from from the moment violet arrived at the lab to the last battle, i knew she'd win. okay, so the sfx were good, she could change the color of her clothes and hair anytime, she defies gravity and pulls weapons out of nowhere and loads her gun with bullets coming out of her wrists, there were some nice gun-kata, but beyond that, there was nothin connection between violet and me. i didnt feel her pain. it was like, she did all of it because she can. not because she has to. the storyline lacked a lot of weight. (a movie with the same condition would be van helsing). in the end, even when they both discovered they were gonna die soon, even after violet cried over the boy thinking he was dead, even when the ending meant hope, you'll easily flush the movie out of your system. no conversations about this movie will ever occur, but if there were, it will be about some of the action sequences, and it wont last longer than five minutes or branch out into deep debates.

ultraviolet = ultravioleNt? nope. visually-appealing but not very impressive. i didnt even use the adjective "cool" anywhere in the previous paragraphs. sheesh.

the good: action choreography. nice for an american film.
the bad: everything else.
the ugly: violet's bangs.
the score: 5 bladed guns.

the skiz.