Ultra-Violet

I don't read comics and I think I only ever saw about 2 seconds of a trailer, so I wasn't really sure to expect from this movie other than creepy Milla Jovovich (she does creepy so well) and lots of shooting. Still, I like action movies, so I decided to go see it.

There was one horrible moment at the beginning when they started talking about Hemophages when I almost gave up on enjoying it at all. "Not the vampires again!" I thought to myself. I'm warning you so you don't walk out and miss the rest of the movie: they don't make a big screaming deal of it. I haven't read the comics, so I don't know whether that idea originated with them, but I could imagine the writers for this movie sitting down over pizza:

"So, okay, why exactly is she all cool and stuff?"

"She's a superhero. Duh."

"Yes, but WHY?! This is a movie, not a comic book, we need a reason!"

"Umm . . . okay, how about this: she's a vampire!"

"A vampire?! That has SO been done."

"Hey, YOU try and come up with something better!"

"Well how about . . . um . . . why don't we try . . . um, erm, hmm . . ."

"Harder than it looks, ain't it?"

"Okay, vampire it is."

The rest of the movie is very enjoyable, however, and the brilliant, savage imagery of comic books was translated well to the screen. It would have been nice to have MORE plot, but it did have a reasonably INTERESTING plot, so I don't feel cheated. If you're fairly intelligent, though, it was a bit predictable. I did enjoy the fact that they didn't draw out the fight scenes to the point of silliness: bad guys run in, BAM! bad guys on the floor. Let's move on. Maybe worth a matinee or rental if you like the grittier sort of comic book and action movie.