ULTRAVIOLET

Ultraviolet (3 1/2 out of Four)

PG-13, 2006, 88 minutes, Screen Gems.Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, William Fichtner, Music by Klaus Badelt, Produced by John Baldecchi, Lucas Foster, Written and Directed by Kurt Wimmer.

So, I went and saw myself some of that there Ultraviolet. Kinda fun for a sci-fi popcorn flick. A little hard to understand the physics though. The whole thing has this weird post-filter applied to like every shot as if it was manipulated with simple Photoshop techniques. And I can tell on a second viewing some of the shots will get annoying. Like there's this one scene where she's surrounded by these Chinese dudes and since everyone's cool they all wear shades. Since she's a vampire she has these strange powers that allow her to hear people's heart palpitations and the rattling of the rings against the metal of the guns. The camera swoops into her eye where she sees the reflection of one guy, then homes in on the reflection of another guy through the reflection in his eye so she can see another reflection of another person and on down the line. When the action finally does start, it pretty much kicks ass in all its Klaus Badelt scored glory.

So, the premise is, Milla Jovovich's a vampire of a dying society of vampires, who hunts humans. Turns out that the vampire biology is being used to further advance technology and make these super soldiers, but there's this highly contagious pathogen that turns people into hemophages--that's the flick's way of calling them vampires. But then during this huge opening heist that defies all laws of physics, she escapes and delivers a package that's about the size of a Milton Bradley board game and inside there's a full-grown human child swirling around in a blue nebula. It's treated like it's an everyday thing and then she escapes with the child with all sorts of people in her ass. Now the humans and the vampires are out to get her because the kid's got some sort of virus in him that can kill either all humans or all vampires.

The flick asks a lot to believe that these people can do all these things, but if you can surrender your disbelief and accept this is some strange lucid dream, then I think the emotional beats and action pay offs will work. It's directed by Kurt Wimmer who wrote and directed the supposed Matrix clone, Equilibrium, (and what film hasn't The Matrix ripped off?). But Equilibrium pretty much came into its own and found its audience. Ultraviolet's action is probably what Equilibrium woulda been if he had the budget. I think with this movie is pretty much his bid for a huge big budget superhero flick, but I doubt Ultraviolet will make Spider-man money.

Oh, the flick's PG-13, but she does find a way to take off her clothes and show off her naked ass. And the flick is pretty graphic, but you can tell they muted some of the extreme violent shots and cut away.

The quote of the flick: "You got hemo-blood on me. It's on."

All About Kickin-Ass and Lookin' Hot Doin' It:

Equilibrium, Black Moon Rising, The Matrix, Underworld, Blade, Space Truckers, Johnny Mnemonic, Barbarella, The Hidden, The Island, Species...

The DVD comes out June 27, 2006

Bloody Mallory (3 ½ out of Four)
NR, 2002, 94 min., Lions Gate Home Entertainment.

Olivia Bonamy, Adria Collado Papillon, Laurent Speilvogel, Julien Boisselier, Tylda Bares, Thierry-Perkins Lyautey, Olivier Hemon, Ludovic Berthillot, Valentina Vargas, Music by Kenji Kawaï, Produced by Oliver Delbosc, Eric Jehelmann and Marc Missonnier, Written by Julien Magnat and Stéphane Kazandjian and Directed by Julien Magnat.

Pack up the pink hearse, rehydrate the holy water, reload the silver bullet mags, check your hair and strap on that tight, tight leather outfit none of us can fit into but everyone else looks good in, and fight, fight, fight that evil into another oblivion.

On her wedding night Mallory chops up her husband with a big-ass ax after finding out that hes a red-eyed, blood-sucking soldier of the undead.

Now, Mallory's the leader of an elite commando squad dedicated to the eradication of ghoulish beasties that are taking over the world. This time she faces off with the evil Popethats right The Popewhos plotting to release a gang of pissed off fallen angels into our dimension where they will chow down on some humans for an eternity or something to that effect.

Do you have to wear lipstick to be part of the team?

Mallory's crack squad is made up of an ass-kicking transvestite, Vena Cava, with a knack for blowing stuff up and machineguns sprouting out of her platform shoes. And of course theres Talking Tina, a 12-year-old teleporting mute who can occupy several hosts by throwing her soul into peoples (and animals) bodies at will. Then theres the young priest who looks more like a male stripper that could make Ricky Martin his bitch with the word hello. While the story is thin and the pacing a little slow for horror, Bloody Mallory makes it up with humor, incredible leaps of reality, and hyper-real color schemes that might have some people remembering Dario Argentos Suspiria. The characters are well drawn out and have their funny lines and antics, while still maneuvering out of booby traps, evading demonic gimps, arms busting out of brick walls, black cats occupying the road and a paranormal arsenal sanctioned by the evil Pope.

As far as special features go, you can jump all over the Kenji Kawaï featurette as he rattles on about his experience coming up with a Japanese theme for a French body-chopping movie about the undead. Theres a behind-the-scenes for those that care, which include interviews with the actors and filmmakers. Its a bit thin on special features unless you like the three trailers so much that you can watch them over and over and all over again. Beware, one trailers in Japanese.Oh, by the way, the flick is bloody, bloody, bloody.

Special Features:

Three trailers (one in Japanese), a featurette on Kenji Kawaï and a Behind the Scenes Featurette.

Fighting the Evil Forces of Whatever:

Hellboy, Bubba Ho-Tep, Van Helsing, Army of Darkness (Directors Cut), Highway to Hell, Phantom Rider, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Blade, Blade II, Blade III, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Men In Black, Men In Black II, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Junk, Big Trouble In Little China, 2002 (Hong Kong), An American Werewolf in Paris, Kindred: The Embraced, Devil Hunter Yohko, John Carpenters Vampires, Vampires: Los Muertos...

WILD ZERO: The Ramones Live Life Again

Wild Zero (Uncut Version) (3 out of Four)
NR, 2000, 98 min., One World Entertainment.

Originally posted at Nighttimes.com on July 14, 2003.

Guitar Wolf, Drum Wolf, Bass Wolf, Masashi Endo, Makoto Inamiya, Masao Sato, Shiro Namiki, Kwancharu Shitichai, Naruka Nakajo, Yoshiyuki Morishita, Music by Guitar Wolf, Produced by Kaichiro Furata and Katswaki Takemoto, Written Satoshi Takagi and Directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi.

Imagine they exhumed the bodies of Joey and Dee Dee Ramone reincarnated as a gun-toting supernatural Japanese vigilante punk band fighting zombies and for the freedom of rock n roll and dubbed themselves Guitar Wolf. Now imagine Guitar Wolf trapped in a tall building full of limb-snacking zombies. He leaps out of a window as it bursts into a heaving blaze of pyro-jiz and yells, Rock n roll! while strumming his guitar. Well, imagine no longer, you foolish monkeys. The rock n roll jet movie is here and daring you to experience it. A flick with fucking balls.

After playing a sweat-drenched set of punk rock, Guitar Wolf find themselves in the club owners office telling them that rock is dead and so are they. Guns sprout about forcing everyone into a Mexican stand-off. And just before Guitar Wolf is about to buy it, a rabid fan by the name of Ace busts in screaming, Rock n roll will never die! Blam, blamity, blam! Ace saves Guitar Wolf and hes given a special one-way distress signal only Guitar Wolf can hear. Guitar Wolf speed off into the blackened highway of the night leaving tire streaks of flames. Ace whips out his mamas fine tooth comb, slicks back his pompadour, hops on to his scooter like the 5-foot manly man he is and putters down the road. But then a mysterious meteor crashes close by turning people into a lumbering gang of flesh-eating zombies.

While the zombies start devouring innocent bystanders Ace finds some hot, young fox who turns out to be a dude. Ace freaks and runs off like a scared, little girl, but then the ghost of Guitar Wolf pops up in front of him yelling, Ace! Love has no nationalities, borders or genders! Fight for the one you love! With that, he combs back his hair and little Ace runs off screaming after his beloved before he/she gets eaten up. And its all uphill from there.There arent many special features here, but what else do you need? You can always buy into the Guitar Wolf hype and get all their CDs. Theres some still galleries and some lame [practically stick figure drawings] if you're into that.

Special Features:

Still and Art Galleries, Trailers: Audition, DOA: Dead or Alive, Pornostar, Sonatine, Wild Zero: Rock n Roll Jet Movie.

Far-out Flicks:

A Boy and His Dog, Six String Samurai, Freaked, Volcano High, The Frightners, Dead-Alive, Repo Man, That Darn Punk, Highway to Hell, Straight to Hell, 2002, A Chinese Ghost Story, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai: Across the 8th Dimension, The Toxic Avenger, Real Men, Dead Heat, Class of 1984, Class of 1999, Brazil, Time Bandits, The Horror of Party Beach, Psycho Beach Party, Innocent Blood...