The blood war is on.

• Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller
• Role: Violet Song jat Shariff
• Director: Kurt Wimmer
• Selected Cast: Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, Sebastien Andrieu, Ida Martin, William Fichtner
• Production Company: Sony Screen Gems
• U.S. Release Date: March 3 2006

In a futuristic, totalitarian world dominated by a universal fear of disease, a dying hemophage and the ultimate living weapon, Violet (Milla Jovovich), is determined to discover the secret behind a young, dying human boy whom everyone seems have a claim for. Deeming Six (Cameron Bright) only a weapon to rid the world of her kind, little does Violet know the true purpose of the boy, as conjured by the world’s narcissistic regime leader, Vice Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus (Nick Chinlund), and she soon finds herself in an open war between two conflicting worlds. She has only less than nine hours to discover the truth behind Six, before his death rules the fates of everyone.

Milla Jovovich portrays Violet, a beautiful hemophage who in her last hours of life comes upon a plot seemingly aimed at extincting the hemophages of the world, with them being an undesired result of government-sanctioned viral and genetic research. Traumatized by a miscarriage caused by the hemoglophagia virus, Violet denies the affection she develops for the young Six as she races against time in an attempt to discover his true importance to the government.

“Hello. My name is Violet and I was born into a world you may not understand.”

“Because I hate humans with every fiber of my being, and I’ll kill every single one of them - almost as quickly as they’ll try and kill me.”

“I think I had to know what I was willing to die for.”

“I’ve never failed to complete.

["It's academic now, isn't it? You won't make it out of here with that case."] “Watch me.”

“You think those people are bad? Well, let me tell you something. The real monster you don’t want to knocking down your door is me.”

“When I was a kid, when I was just a little girl, I used to dream about this old, dusty road. And this road would go on as far as the eye could see. There were all these little white flowers growing around the edges. And it was such a peaceful place. But then you realize, when life settles in around you, places like this don’t exist.”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? Killing is what I do. It’s what I’m good at. I am a titan. A monolith. Nothing can stop me.”

["Violet Song jat Shariff, tell me I'm wrong."] “You’re wrong.”

• Director Kurt Wimmer reportedly wrote the script with Milla as his first choice actress to play the title role.

• In the action sequences, Milla’s Violet uses a more authentic variant of “Gun Kata”, a unique blend of gunfighting and martial arts which director Wimmer originally developed for his previous film, Equilibrium.

• During production of the film, director Wimmer reportedly asked Milla to punch him in the face, in order to get a feel for the intensity she was putting in her action sequences. For the next several days, Wimmer directed the film with a black eye.

• Director Wimmer makes a brief cameo appearance in the film as the “speak-no-evil” hemophage, who is shot to death by Vice Cardinal Daxus. He makes a similar cameo appearance in his previous film, Equilibrium.

• The muzzle flash from Violet’s guns bears a striking resemblance to the biohazard symbol, which recurs in the film many times.

• Sony Screen Gems’ executives were so displeased with the director’s cut of the film that they edited out 30 minutes of the film against the wishes of director Wimmer. It was reportedly too “emotional” for the action film the producers were looking for, and many, including Wimmer, agree today that the studio-enforced cuts significantly lowered the quality of the film.

• Milla has in recent days spoken out against director Wimmer, expressing her dismay at not being allowed to see her performance, despite an earlier agreement. Milla had a similar issue with Resident Evil: Apocalypse director Alexander Witt.

Upon its March 2006 release, Ultraviolet received a largely negative critical response and went unnoticed at the Box Office upon its opening weekend. Although visually beautiful, many criticized the film for its cliché-ridden, uninvolving script shamelessly underestimating the intelligence of its target audience as well as for its seemingly miscast actors and low-budget CGI. Many also remarked upon the similarities between Ultraviolet and Paul W.S. Anderson’s zombie horror film Resident Evil of 2002, something which was largely blamed on the production company behind both films, Sony Screen Gems.

Extracts from professional reviews:

“Certainly not Mr Wimmer, whose directorial vision might kindly be described as blurry. Ultraviolet is a compendium of critic’s clichés given literal life on screen. The script isn’t simply nonsensical, or confused, or poorly structured. It’s actual nonsense. The acting isn’t under-powered, or pretentious, or half-hearted. It’s laugh-out-loud ludicrous. The CGI isn’t slightly cheap or poorly detailed - it’s Playstation quality. And so on. [...] The only redeeming feature is a production design so outrageously mad that you will genuinely have no idea what you’re watching for more than half the time.” - Paul Arendt, BBC

“Writer-director Kurt Wimmer manages to make a sci-fi actioner that’s stupider and less tasteful than his last picture, Equilibrium. That’s some sort of feat, I guess. The predictable balance of mindless action and ridiculous tenderness is scored with the obligatory bad techno and bad orchestral music. It’s all here: the cheesy iterations on The Matrix’s “bullet time” special effects, the vampires, the senseless Christian imagery, and scads of unintentionally funny moments. [...] The real blood war is between this movie and the slightly better Aeon Flux, which Wimmer seems to rip off as freely as Equilibrium plagiarized Fahrenheit 451 and The Matrix. Jovovich’s catch phrase in Ultraviolet is “Watch me,” but for God’s sake, don’t listen.” - Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews

“Actually, that’s not being fair to comic books, the majority of which are smarter, more creative and better written than this instantly forgettable sci-fi picture about a kick-ass warrior woman with a taste for body-hugging outfits who battles an endless army of heavily armed soldiers in a vaguely fascistic future. If this sounds familiar, that’s because the same movie was already released last December under the name Aeon Flux. Ultimately, the only real difference between the two films is cost; judging by the cartoonish digital effects and the excessive recycling of shots, Ultraviolet appears to have been made for a fraction of Aeon Flux’s catering budget. As is often the case, though, the cheaper film turns out to be slightly more imaginative than the big-budget behemoth. Make no mistake: Ultraviolet is a bad movie. But unlike recent genre duds like Flux and Underworld: Evolution, at least you can see flashes of a better film lurking beneath the surface.” - Ethan Alter, Film Journal

Personal Thoughts

To be honest, I never had high expectations of this film, largely thanks to the trailer that showcased the film’s most banal moments. Thus, the film itself was a positive surprise - though that isn’t saying much. It is regrettable that such potential as Ultraviolet had should’ve been so shamelessly wasted on largely wooden acting performances and an uninvolving script, which sounds better in writing than when spoken. The presence of Sony Screen Gems is also disturbingly evident in the film; as many others have noted, the film bears at times a striking resemblance to Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil of 2002 (another Screen Gems production), and, indeed, director Wimmer blamed the critical failure of the film on studio-enforced cuts. Thus, you cannot help but wonder what the director’s cut would’ve been like.

Milla’s performance in Ultraviolet is solid, albeit not her best. In her own words, she was not happy with her own performance and shunned director Wimmer for not allowing her to see it prior to the release of the film. However, in the visually breathtaking world of the film, the beautiful Milla and her amazing physique blend in perfectly, and just watching her carry out the battle choreography is a pleasure. It is also worth noting that the shamelessly unoriginal script left little room for genuine character development, and thus it is not suprising that Milla’s performance should’ve left a good many reviewers cold.

Below are some Ultraviolet related links that may be of interest to you.

• Ultraviolet official site
• Ultraviolet TFL-approved fanlisting
• Ultraviolet TFL-approved Violet character fanlisting
• Ultraviolet at IMDb.com
• Ultraviolet at RottenTomatoes.com
• Ultraviolet at Wikipedia.org

• Kurt Wimmer at IMDb.com
• Kurt Wimmer at Wikipedia.org