Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

(2006)

I remember liking Ultraviolet but I recall the ending being kind of tame. Like, did something just happen? Oh, that’s the end… okay, I guess. This could be due to a not very memorable villain. Just a guy in a suit, I think.

Vampirism is seen as a disease in this story. I remember that much. Mostly I remember Mila Java bitch… Jakovic… Djokovic… hey Siri, how do you spell Mila Janovic? I give up.

So the super sexy and agile protagonist (Weird Al Yankovic) engages in a particular brand of martial arts invented and described in a different movie. Yeah, the director of Ultraviolet (Kurt Wimmer) demonstrates a fighting style called Gun Katas in his film Equilibrium. According to the Equilibrium story, with Gun Katas, combatants learn natural and likely formations people with guns get into when attacking a singular target. The Gun Katas practitioner then hurls themselves into the fray and takes out the multiple targets in a very stylized and systematic fashion.

Now the way this process was demonstrated in Equilibrium had kind of an unintended comical effect as Christian Bale stood impossibly still in the middle of a gun fight while his arms moved in speedy and unrealistically precise motions. I was able to suspend some disbelief eventually as I watched Equilibrium multiple times but most friends I watched it with could not help but laugh at first.

I probably should have saved this explanation for an Equilibrium non-review but here we are.

Ultraviolet seems to feature a guns/martial arts combination fight choreography that is clearly designed by the same person. No lengthy explanation of Gun Katas in Ultraviolet, however. Mila just does it… aaaaand if you’ve seen Equilibrium it’s kind of jarring to see it again here. Nevertheless, it is pretty exciting choreography.

The brutalist architecture was a fitting setting for the story and yet it was seemingly another trope from director, Kurt Wimmer. The man seems to love colorless concrete.

The pugilation fodder (bad guys) rolling onto the scene inside black balls like Samus Aran from Metroid was pretty cool. Makes me wonder if this director could do a Metroid film. Man, I would love to see a Metroid film.

Mila JAVOVICH (I looked it up) is great with the action as one might expect. I’m a big fan of the Resident Evil movies (as toungue-in-cheek as they can be) and Mila delivers in this film as much as those. Also, William Fichtner is in this so that’s good.

Optional Tangent:

Dang Fichtner would have been an awesome Shredder from Ninja Turtles! I know he’s not Japanese but I don’t care. He would have been great. Retro fitting William into “Not Shredder” made his involvement janky and weird.