Ultraviolet (2006)IMDB LinkUltraviolet is criticized for many things, and it is many of these things that I enjoyed. It is an extremely flawed movie, and one of the saddest things about its financial and critical failure is that it will either discourage the studio or the director from attempting something like this again. That would be a shame, because this movie, contrary to what many people say, is actually very unique.
It bothered me that Equilibrium was constantly claimed to be a copy of Matrix, as Equilibrium was very different from Matrix, specially its quick, violent action, instead of the slow motion Matrix one. Ultraviolet, while certainly not near as good as Equilibirium, is still surprisingly a lot different than all the movies it gets compared too.
The best way to explain Ultraviolet is to just refer you to the opening credits. It shows comic book covers of an Ultraviolet comic book (it’s fake, there is no such comic book). Each cover is a different comic book style, where it’s Violet slicing her sword in Japanese Manga style, or bashing heads in a more American style of drawing. And that’s it. Never has an opening credit so perfectly summed up the movie. Ultraviolet is one of those pulp comic books, that are about exaggerated action, sexy lead, and short dialogue. The pages are not filled with words, but with visuals.
Here are some good things that Ultraviolet achieves.
Look at the color. I don’t think any movie captures the visuals of a comic book as perfectly as Ultraviolet. Everything is bright with simple colors. You can grab a frame from any scene of the movie, print it out, and it would look like a page out of a comic book.
The movie is brimming with boyish imagination. A card that can be printed and used as a phone? Storing weapons in a pocket universe? All these are examples of the entertaining imagination of director, Kurt Wimmer.
And Kurt still proves that he can continue to be cool. One scene (it’s a final scene, and it’s a spoiler, but don’t worry, plot is hardly important here) has Violet in the dark, and to fight her opponent, she strikes her sword against the ground, until it catches fire. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not mature enough yet to not fucking enjoy a sword fight in the dark with flaming swords.
Still, I don’t want to give the movie too much credit. No matter how much I defend the movie, we can’t escape from the fact that ultimately the movie failed. It seems the studio had massively re-edited the movie, and that might have made a difference, but I think if I am honest with myself, I have to fault Kurt. He has made a movie that is more appealing to himself than to the audience. The director should have more understanding of his audience. Take Tarantino for example. There is a director that understands his audience perfectly, and knows how to deliver what they want to them. His Kill Bill was silly and copied from other movies, but these facts were changed to compliments, because of the way he presented them.
Kurt isn’t able to do the same thing. No one appreciates what he does, because he doesn’t present them in the correct way. Reviewers have mocked his dialogue, especially when the main bad guy says, “It’s on”. This is on purpose, as evidenced by the beginning of the movie where one of the comic book covers has the phrase “It’s on!” in blood red on it. To Kurt, this was a homage, to most people watching it, it was incompetence. But then whose fault is it? If a director isn’t able to convey his intentions well, then shouldn’t he be blamed rather than the audience?
I don’t recommend Ultraviolet for now. But save this message, and consider this to be a recommendation for watching this movie in 10 or 20 years. When the movie gets outdated completely, then viewers will be able to enjoy themselves more, because they’ll get the full pulp feel of it.
3/5
