These "hemophages"-who, incidentally, don't seem to actually suck blood, their fangs more apt as ornaments to their Eurotrash couture-have recently acquired a pivotal new weapon by way of a child named Six (Cameron Bright), whose blood contains deadly antigens capable of infecting a host on contact. Jovovich plays into this mess as Violet, an assassin in heels who takes it upon herself to look out for the boy's wellbeing.
"Ultraviolet" follows not far behind writer-director Kurt Wimmer's debut film "Equilibrium," a dystopian sci-fi run-and-gun wherein an Orwellian government forcibly pacifies its subjects via emotion-neutralizing drugs-think "The Matrix" meets Lois Lowry's "The Giver." Though a visibly low-budget affair, the otherwise moderately thoughtful film-thanks largely to the participation of indie heavyweight Christian Bale-nevertheless has afforded Wimmer a healthy cult fan base.
Fans of "Equilibrium" will likely be disappointed by Wimmer's latest offering. A painfully tedious lurch towards the credits from its outset, "Violet" couples uninspired fight sequences with listless dialogue in a way that is as bloodless as it is formulaic.
Though numerous questions arise as to the story's plausibility-how does Violet, pursued as she is by legions of government shock troopers, find the time to frolic with maternal surrogate Six in a suburban park?-by the film's end a more apt question might be, why do we care?
Whereas Wimmer's earlier work was carried by Bale's solemn charisma, "Violet" is rife with supermodel sensibilities befitting its leading lady.
When Jovovich, who demonstrates a curious ability to change both her hair and outfit color at will, infiltrates an enemy lab, her strut down neon-lit corridors may as well be down a catwalk. In this way it seems entirely appropriate that Milla's toned abs are granted nearly as much screen time as is her face, with either one having about as much to say in this interminably dull-witted film as the other.
Though Jovovich's past forays into such films as Spike Lee's "He Got Game" hint at some unfulfilled potential, her more recent resignation to "Violet" and the "Resident Evil" franchise (the third installment of which is currently in pre-production) suggests that we may not see the Ukrainian supermodel-actress outside a cat suit anytime in the near future.
In spite of Milla's best efforts, however, "Ultraviolet"'s aesthetic effect is exceedingly garish, impoverished both in means and in taste. The entire film, saturated with visibly crude CGI and grotesque contrast, has a numbing, bleary-eyed look.
Action scenes are rendered in graphics unworthy of past video games, attempts at sleek design fall to tacky cross motifs and glass spiral staircases and armored personnel carriers look conspicuously like re-painted street sweepers.
If the crass, unaccomplished work put into "Violet" comes as no surprise, it is likely a result of our having become all too familiar with the shortcomings of this and other such films, all of which suffer from the same incoherence.
Whereas science fiction has traditionally been a medium for the exploration of man's otherworldly possibilities, in the modern, post-"Matrix" landscape moviegoers are inundated with Hong Kong inspired spectacles for whom the term "sci-fi" is a misnomer and which are concerned more with running real fast than thinking real hard.
With films like "Ultraviolet" epitomizing everything gone wrong with the genre, American science fiction seems at least at the moment to reside on a sea of cookie-cutter films whose trailers are more rousing than the junk which they attempt to endorse.