Ultraviolet - The price of friendship

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Have you ever been at a gathering of friends and you all decide to check the online movie selection and watch one? Do you trust their judgment?

Well, I had that experience recently and the group wanted to watch the movie Ultraviolet based on the summary on Netflix. I did not immediately remember the film, but after viewing it with them I think my faith in their judgment is forever damaged - because this is one BAD film.

Ultraviolet is a movie starring Mila Jovovich which is sort of Science Fiction. She is part of a resistance movement in a futuristic dictatorship where the rebels are all victims of a virus which has made them all "Hemophages". Basically hemophages have a lot of vampire like qualities except they apparently do not drink blood. Pretty much it is a typical "fight the system" dystopian film.

So, how to describe its badness? That is a good question.

First, the visual effects are terrible to put it lightly. If you ever want to see a movie that demonstrates bad CGI this may be it. Basically none of the CGI scenes look remotely real, instead you feel like you're in a poorly written video game (shades of Uwe Boll's House of the Dead). This is especially true in the early film motorcycle chase scenes and also Mila Jovovich's hair and clothes changing color seemingly at command during scenes - the effect looked silly.

Second, the plot is riddled with huge holes and most characters make no sense at all, especially that of Violet - the protagonist played by Mila Jovovich. Technology just appears and plot elements just happen with no setup.

Third, mostly bad acting. Ironically, Jovovich wasn't too bad in her part but everyone around her was as flat as a board.

After recovering from this experience. some internet research was done to try to understand how the film wound up this bad. It turns out Screen Gems did their own editing and locked out the cast from the editing discussions. Apparently they cut out most of the character development scenes and also re edited the fights.

There seems to be an "extended edition" out there with the cuts restored. sorry, but one run through this mess was enough.
 

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Actually I would say worse. Bloodrayne was complete schlock and (like always) Kristanna Loken was terrible in her role but the rest of the cast seemed to understand the silliness of the story and played it better.
 
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