I didn’t heed the warnings. I didn’t see the writing on the wall.

I. Watched. Ultra. Violet.

A movie is a balancing act, and a good one can have a few bad elements. Ultraviolet, on the other hand, is nothing but bad elements. The opening sequence sets the stage, with stills of comic book covers featuring a character that we don’t actually care about yet, and never will. balance

Kurt Wimmer, the mastermind behind the totally great 1984-with-ninjas-concept movie Equilibrium, got a little big for his britches and made what is likely the worst action movie of the decade. The film features Milla Jovavich as Violet, and Milla Jovavich’s abdominal muscles . Seriously, they should get second billing. They’re in almost every scene, because some tool-shed costume designer didn’t put his foot down and say “An invincible-super-ninja-vampire would not wear a mid-riff baring shirt.”

The movie starts out with a terrorist faction of government-made vampires being launched via some sort of ball-bearing delivery system into an office building. So far, so good. The ball-bearing-ninjas get owned by the local security after chopping up (with no blood spatter) some scientist. Then we introduce our heroin, and little too late for anyone to care.

She narrates the amazingly stupid plot for a little while, and to her credit, she tries really hard to sound serious. It almost works except for phrases like “and so began the blood wars.” We meet the world’s germaphobic ruler Vice Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus (Nick Chinlund), who is so scared of germs he even keeps his personal sidearm hermetically sealed, and begins the movie-long of trend of characters not actually talking like people. That wouldn’t be so bad if it was well written, but it’s not. Daxus actually says “A courier is retrieving to bring here to the arch ministry as we speak.” That’s verbatim, I swear. Hurts, doesn’t it?

The movie is pretty much one long action sequence that demonstrates the Inverse Ninja Law. One ninja is unstoppable, but two or more might as well be Dodge Ball champions facing off against a battle-mech. The five Ball-Bearing Ninjas get owned by corporate security, while a lone warrior ninja kills everyone and everything that stands in her way.

Violet nabs a dimension-bending Macguffin that’s actually full of that Creepy Kid who always plays a Creepy Kid in everything he’s in (Cameron Bright ), and who may or may not hold the key to killing all the vampires. Or he’s the key to killing all the humans.Or the he’s key to really great lobster bisque. I really have no clue. What I do know, is that the main character uses “flat space technology” so she can wear skin-tight clothing at all times and whip out a goddamned arsenal without it having to make sense.

More action ensues as Violet attempts to bring an end to the reign of the Grand-High Germaphobe. Some crappy gun-kata rip-off happens, and the credits roll. This movie is like a bad relationship, you feel like a bad person because you tolerated it for so long.

That being said: CAVALCADE THE HELL out of this picture.  It deserves everything you can throw at it. Mock it, make lewd shadow puppets on screen, it has it coming. Pair it up with Fist of the North Star for a Dystopian Double-Up.

Most importantly, AVENGE ME!

This movie starts out with a flashback-where we know it’s the past because it’s in black and white-in which a young woman shoots a guy (who shot another guy), then he bites her and turns her into a vampire. Yep, that pretty much sums up the movie.

Wait, you want more?

Ok, then toss in a totally sweet 80’s music video opening, absurd psychedelic backgrounds and all. Enter our main character, Lilith Silver, played with quivering lipped over-acting by Eileen Daly. Seriously, her lower lip trembles at every vowel. Anyhow, Lilith divides her time between hanging out at the Goth Club where they play Bauhaus, and picking up contracts in her latex kill-suit and thigh high boots.

LILITH: I bet you think you know all about vampires. Believe me, you know fuck-all.

There’s a plot in here… somewhere. I want to tell you more. I really do. It involves some Illuminati rings. . . and some sex scenes. The sex scenes at least don’t feel like some of the directors friends from the club showed up to be paid in pizza and beer. They’re actually a whole other kind of depressing.

Lilith is bisexual so there’s two of them. One depressing and sad sex scene with a pallid, not-quite-at-the-gym-enough type of guy that she adores, and the other with a pretty girl who she just kills.

This whole movie is filmed like the music video for the Smith’s The Boy With The Thorn in His Side. From the weird angles that someone thought were avaunt guard, to the crappy lighting that supposed to be authentic and edgy, the movie wants so badly to be shot by Tony Scott. And all the while, Lilith narrates the entire thing with an overwrought tone that screams “nobody ever liked me in high school.”

Tie all this together with a half-assed murder mystery, in which the only real mystery is why Lilith hasn’t yet been arrested, what with the trail of bodies she leaves behind-and you have a formula for c-grade-movie awesome.

With amazingly bad writing, sub-par British acting, and terribly filtered day-for-night shooting, what’s not to love? Follow this up with the under appreciated John Landis movie Innocent Blood, and you have a recipe for a hell of a Cavalcade.

Ten years in the future, mothers across the nation will scold their children with,  “Why aren’t you drinking your blood?  Don’t you know there are starving vampires in China!”

Actually, there are starving vampires all over the world in the Speirig Brothers’ Daybreakers.  Ethan Hawke plays chief hematologist Edward Dalton, a vampire struggling with his condition in a world populated by vampires. He’s trying to develop a substitute for human blood, as it is becoming the world’s scarcest natural resource.  But, in secret, he’s also hoping to find a cure for vampirism itself.

Sam Neill plays Charles Bromley, the evil head of the major pharmaceutical company that employs Ethan Hawke, who hopes to continue exploiting both humans and vampires for financial gain, and find his daughter, played by Isabel Lucas. She rejected the vampire way and remained human, and he hopes to recruit her to the winning team.

Willem Dafoe plays Lionel “Elvis” Cormac, ex-mechanic and ex-vampire (but all–awesome), who fights to re-establish human supremacy over the Earth, or at the very least, make humans no longer an endangered species. He does this under the leadership of  Audrey Bennett, played by the lovely Claudia Karvan.

Finally, Michael Dorman plays Frankie Dalton, Edward’s brother, who hunts down the humans for farming and has trouble not forcing himself on people that don’t want to be bitten.

I’ve gone into so much detail about the leads because the film seems to have about 4 to 5 different movies that all have the theme of a world populated with vampires but have little else to do with each other.  Unfortunately, none of these stories are brought to any real conclusion.

Another detractor is the film’s failure of the “Who cares?” test:  Does the film get you, the audience involved in the triumphs and tragedies of its story?  Not really.  We’ve all these earnest characters as described above trying to make a difference in their world, but they all seem to be sleepwalking through the movie!  The notable exception is Willem Dafoe, who has been proven to make everything better (see Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day ).

On the plus side, there are a few fairly interesting ideas on display if one enjoys vampire movies. The Speirigs do a great job of troubleshooting what a society of vampires would look like. The cars and armor designed to allow vampires to travel in broad daylight were neat, but more fascinating was the idea of the “Subwalk” which connects nearly every home in the area to an series of underground tunnels.  Also fun were the warnings of the impending dawn.

As in every vampire movie, there is however, that one idea that pushes the boundaries of believability.  Remember the UV  grenades from Blade II or the sunlight bullets from Underworld?  They’ve got nothing on the cure for vampirism in Daybreakers which is…
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The real highlights are some truly inspired moments of gory violence that begin with Ethan Hawke injecting his prototype blood substitute into a willing (albeit a likely uninformed) volunteer.  Suffice it to say, the projectile vomiting and boils are the least of the lad’s worries.

Another favorite can only be described as a moment of unparalleled YUPPIE RAGE!  As blood supplies grow ever more scarce, the amount of blood put in one’s evening coffee gets smaller and smaller. This does not sit well with one hungry, hungry customer who proceeds to screech like bat and destroy everything in sight.

I nearly cried laughing. If only there were more of these bright, shining moments of lunacy sandwiched between Ethan Hawke moodying up the scene.  Well, that and more Sam Neill.  We always need more Sam Neill.