whoops
HELP NEEDED!
Jesus two months since I last posted. Much as happened and i'll explain it next time, but for now have a film review I've been working on for months and months. Please read and criticise, i would love your opinion.
Ultraviolet 2006
Rated: 15
Studio
Original Comic Book Company
It’s happened! I finally have a new number 1 worst film of all time. I never thought ‘Deep Impact’ would fall, then ‘Troy’ rose (ironically). Who knew that ‘Troy’ would fall so soon (habit maybe? Ok enough of that) to ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’. Surely, I thought, surely there is nothing worse that this film. Human endeavour has begot a film with no redeeming features, nothing of worth. There is no need to sink lower. Then I was introduced to ‘Ultraviolet’ from 2006.
I will start with the one scene that has the films single redeeming feature. The chase in the opening series of scenes reminds me of a modern ‘Tron’. Or what ‘Tron’ could be with 21st century technology. That’s just about it, and for that glimmer of thinking-this-style-might-look-good-somewhere-else I give ‘Ultraviolet’ a third of a star (out of 10).
And that’s it for the Pro’s. On the top of the cons list we have Plot. Ultra-cool and ultra-thin Violet is a hemophage (vampire) and part of the hemophage ‘resistance’. She captures a ‘weapon’ that turns out to be a child who she then steals to protect for a undisclosed reason. But it turns out that he isn’t a weapon against hemophages but a weapon against humans so the dictator of this totalitarian state can keep control of the… something. I’m not really sure. The story resembles a disconnected mumbled rant by some bin-looting loon. To say it’s unrealistic would be monolithic understatement. Its about not-vampires-honest or ‘people with an infection’ who apparently aren’t humans anymore but a whole new race despite that fact its called an INFECTION. Oh and they’re terrorists. Whoops I mean ‘freedom fighters’. However the main issue I have with the plot isn’t the stupidity of it, but the moral ambiguity. We’re supposed to support Violet, she doesn’t want to kill the humans, bless ‘er. Though she does. Lots. And the ‘freedom fighters’ are good right? Because they’re fighting a corrupted, politico-religious, dictatorial system, right? I dunno! The film hints at this with hospitals and research labs as semi religious centres and the dictator called ‘Deacon’, but doesn’t ever take the time to explain it. The whole film seems to be a sequel without the aid of a first film for the exposition. With the hemophages walking around at the beginning with red identifying armbands, I suppose its some kind of metaphor for the persecution of the Jews. Or possibly AIDS, since it is an infection. But then again people with AIDS aren’t considered a different race. So yeah, I am guessing it all about the racism thing. But then at the end of the film they find a cure! If they wanted a cure what was the point of fighting for their freedom in the first place? See? It’s a moral mess. There isn’t enough room here to explain the labyrinthine plot. AND NEVER WILL BE.
Something else to take issue with in on the con’s list is a personal bugbear of mine, The style. How a director managed to get style over content with the mammoth plot line is actually impressive. The film looks like the director found all the light and colour they sucked out of ‘Sin City’ and said ‘Hey, I know what I can use this for’. Then he turned the contrast right up to 11, poured on an unhealthy dose of lens glare and presumably went to polish the walls some more. The look of the scenes are so multicoloured shiny surfaces, polished steel and glass that it began to hurt my eyes, until eventually it just hurt my brain. It’s all way too much.
That’s a rather good phrase actually, it applies to most of the film. Apart from the acting of course, When it comes to that there just wasn’t enough. Each scene flies past without as much as a by your leave, so that any actual acting left is simply parroting the lines and legging it off to shoot someone in the face. The shining light of the whole experience is William Fichtner. Look him up, he’s been in a lot, but there just isn’t enough screen time for him to stretch. Other than what little of him we see the acting is universally bad.
After that it rather goes down hill.
However, none of these things ruin ‘Ultraviolet’ per se. There’s nothing wrong with hyper unrealistic style. The acting is certainly less smug than ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’. And I can deal with a plot too big for the film, look how awesome ‘Lord of the Rings’ is. None of these problems kill the film. What does brutally and bloodily murder it is the old ‘It-could-have-been-good’ flaw. OK it was never going to be ‘Citizen Kane’ but ‘Ultraviolet’ was filmed, edited and polished and sent of to the studios by the director for reviewing. Then some money-crazed producer got his hands on it and performed a smash-and-grab with some editing equipment. They cut it down from 120 to 88 minutes. Deciding it was too emotional they got rid of most of the ‘down’ scenes leaving minimal plot exposition and nothing but scene after scene of fighting and chasing with a little more fighting and chasing followed up with some chasing and fighting. No one can say if it was going to be world shattering, but they could have fixed so much. Still, we’ll never know.
So for Tron-ness, one decent actor and one reasonably cool line ‘Ultraviolet’ gets a rousing 1/10. But that’s it and then only just. Over all it has too much of that which should be subtle, and not enough of the things that make a film a film, such as exposition, emotional contrast and a consistent story-line. And while I’m at it if you stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, with all your guns pointed at one protagonist in the middle, of course you’re going to shoot the person behind them.
And metal ISNT FUCKING FLAMABLE!
thanks for your time, and talk to you soon.
Jesus two months since I last posted. Much as happened and i'll explain it next time, but for now have a film review I've been working on for months and months. Please read and criticise, i would love your opinion.
Ultraviolet 2006
Rated: 15
Studio
Original Comic Book Company
It’s happened! I finally have a new number 1 worst film of all time. I never thought ‘Deep Impact’ would fall, then ‘Troy’ rose (ironically). Who knew that ‘Troy’ would fall so soon (habit maybe? Ok enough of that) to ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’. Surely, I thought, surely there is nothing worse that this film. Human endeavour has begot a film with no redeeming features, nothing of worth. There is no need to sink lower. Then I was introduced to ‘Ultraviolet’ from 2006.
I will start with the one scene that has the films single redeeming feature. The chase in the opening series of scenes reminds me of a modern ‘Tron’. Or what ‘Tron’ could be with 21st century technology. That’s just about it, and for that glimmer of thinking-this-style-might-look-good-somewhere-else I give ‘Ultraviolet’ a third of a star (out of 10).
And that’s it for the Pro’s. On the top of the cons list we have Plot. Ultra-cool and ultra-thin Violet is a hemophage (vampire) and part of the hemophage ‘resistance’. She captures a ‘weapon’ that turns out to be a child who she then steals to protect for a undisclosed reason. But it turns out that he isn’t a weapon against hemophages but a weapon against humans so the dictator of this totalitarian state can keep control of the… something. I’m not really sure. The story resembles a disconnected mumbled rant by some bin-looting loon. To say it’s unrealistic would be monolithic understatement. Its about not-vampires-honest or ‘people with an infection’ who apparently aren’t humans anymore but a whole new race despite that fact its called an INFECTION. Oh and they’re terrorists. Whoops I mean ‘freedom fighters’. However the main issue I have with the plot isn’t the stupidity of it, but the moral ambiguity. We’re supposed to support Violet, she doesn’t want to kill the humans, bless ‘er. Though she does. Lots. And the ‘freedom fighters’ are good right? Because they’re fighting a corrupted, politico-religious, dictatorial system, right? I dunno! The film hints at this with hospitals and research labs as semi religious centres and the dictator called ‘Deacon’, but doesn’t ever take the time to explain it. The whole film seems to be a sequel without the aid of a first film for the exposition. With the hemophages walking around at the beginning with red identifying armbands, I suppose its some kind of metaphor for the persecution of the Jews. Or possibly AIDS, since it is an infection. But then again people with AIDS aren’t considered a different race. So yeah, I am guessing it all about the racism thing. But then at the end of the film they find a cure! If they wanted a cure what was the point of fighting for their freedom in the first place? See? It’s a moral mess. There isn’t enough room here to explain the labyrinthine plot. AND NEVER WILL BE.
Something else to take issue with in on the con’s list is a personal bugbear of mine, The style. How a director managed to get style over content with the mammoth plot line is actually impressive. The film looks like the director found all the light and colour they sucked out of ‘Sin City’ and said ‘Hey, I know what I can use this for’. Then he turned the contrast right up to 11, poured on an unhealthy dose of lens glare and presumably went to polish the walls some more. The look of the scenes are so multicoloured shiny surfaces, polished steel and glass that it began to hurt my eyes, until eventually it just hurt my brain. It’s all way too much.
That’s a rather good phrase actually, it applies to most of the film. Apart from the acting of course, When it comes to that there just wasn’t enough. Each scene flies past without as much as a by your leave, so that any actual acting left is simply parroting the lines and legging it off to shoot someone in the face. The shining light of the whole experience is William Fichtner. Look him up, he’s been in a lot, but there just isn’t enough screen time for him to stretch. Other than what little of him we see the acting is universally bad.
After that it rather goes down hill.
However, none of these things ruin ‘Ultraviolet’ per se. There’s nothing wrong with hyper unrealistic style. The acting is certainly less smug than ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’. And I can deal with a plot too big for the film, look how awesome ‘Lord of the Rings’ is. None of these problems kill the film. What does brutally and bloodily murder it is the old ‘It-could-have-been-good’ flaw. OK it was never going to be ‘Citizen Kane’ but ‘Ultraviolet’ was filmed, edited and polished and sent of to the studios by the director for reviewing. Then some money-crazed producer got his hands on it and performed a smash-and-grab with some editing equipment. They cut it down from 120 to 88 minutes. Deciding it was too emotional they got rid of most of the ‘down’ scenes leaving minimal plot exposition and nothing but scene after scene of fighting and chasing with a little more fighting and chasing followed up with some chasing and fighting. No one can say if it was going to be world shattering, but they could have fixed so much. Still, we’ll never know.
So for Tron-ness, one decent actor and one reasonably cool line ‘Ultraviolet’ gets a rousing 1/10. But that’s it and then only just. Over all it has too much of that which should be subtle, and not enough of the things that make a film a film, such as exposition, emotional contrast and a consistent story-line. And while I’m at it if you stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, with all your guns pointed at one protagonist in the middle, of course you’re going to shoot the person behind them.
And metal ISNT FUCKING FLAMABLE!
thanks for your time, and talk to you soon.