AmateurMovieReviews.com

Directed by Kurt Wimmer (he also did equilibrium, which I liked), starring Mila Jovovich as lead character Violet Song jat Shariff. The opening credits are designed to have the feel of a Japanese anime piece or a live action coming book, and this continues throughout the film with the extensive use of bright and contrasting colors as well as 'soft focus' close ups of the cast to make them appear blurry and generated.

Violet greets us with a voice over "Hello. My name is Violet and I was born into a world you may not understand." Our timeframe is the late 21st century, following a pandemic of a highly infectious blood spread virus dubbed hemophagia. It was initially developed by the government in attempt to create super soldiers, but of course the genie got out of the bottle. People infected with the disease develop superior strength, skill and speed...as well as an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and lengthened canines which leads to these 'hemophages' being termed vampires by most. Though they have superhuman powers, their lifespan is drastically shortened...only 12 years from infection to death. The government uses the public's fear of infection to control the population, and nearly all the hemophages are captured and exterminated by the Arch-Ministry, who have infiltrated the government and pull all the strings of power.

Violet is one of the few remaining hemophages...she was pregnant when infected, captured and experimented on until her unborn child was forcibly aborted very late in term. She's 36 hours away from her 12 year mark and has spent the past decade working with the underground resistance movement of fellow hemophages attempting to overthrow the head of the Arch-Ministry: Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus. He has created a super weapon to wipe out the remaining hemophages, and Violet poses as a courier to pick up the weapon with the intent to steal it and either bring it to the resistance or destroy it if captured.

She is directed by both the resistance and the Arch-Ministry to not open the case...but she cannot resist and is horrified to discover that inside is a human child, harboring within him many secrets. The resistance attempts to destroy the child, but Violet anticipates their brutality and what they destroy is merely a hologram. She brings the boy (Cameron Bright) to friend and fellow hemophage scientist Garth (William Fichtner) who has long been searching for a cure, in hopes the boy can be reverse engineered to save the hemophages instead of exterminating them. Garth discovers that the antigens in the boy have nothing to do with hemopagia, but instead are designed to kill humans...and that he has a ruthless protein in his system that will kill him in less than eight hours.

The boy doesn't speak at first, but as he gets to know Violet he reveals that his name is Six. The two share a special bond, him never knowing a woman and her longing for her dead child. Daxus has also implanted in the boy a tracking device, and upon their next encounter he reveals that Six is his clone and that he intends to use the deadly antigens to control all of humanity by releasing them and then selling the cure.

A decent film all in all, with fantastic special effects. Violet's clothes and hair change at will based on her situation in a very chameleon like fashion. And good lord, I loved her costumes. So futuristic and gorgeous...it almost makes me want to work out. Mila is gorgeous, and I think she is absolutely perfect in any Sci-Fi heroine role...I'd watch an hour of her eating toast, honestly, but it pleases me to no end that our generation has a woman like her to entertain us. She's very gifted, and that's a rarity. Cameron Bright as Six is wonderful as well...he's still in his pre-pubescent angelic stage, and that always plays well on the big screen.

That said, the story and the script are terrible...I got the general gist of what was going on, but there was very little story development other than visuals, which are of course subjective. The script is poorly written and all over the place, and the details of hemophagia are sketchy at best. Perhaps I want too much...but I need some background, folks. Another beef were the weapons...characters could carry unlimited amounts on their person and they would just magically appear out of thin air. I'm sure there's an explanation for this, but no one bothered to tell me in the film so instead of thinking 'how cool' I though 'how silly'. I have, of course, done some research and learned that this is called 'dimensional compression'...but I prefer to not have to wiki my movies as I watch them. And, despite the fact that watching Mila kick ass is a great way to spend an evening, there was just too damn much fighting.

I've read that the studio yanked this one out from under Wimmer because they didn't approve of what he had done with the film and the story...a bad choice, I believe. Wimmer's equilibrium was well done, and despite all the Gun Kata the story is clear and we understand why the hero does what he does. In this film, your guess is as good as mine.

Rowan's Rating Scale: This one gets 6 out of 12 monkeys. Better than what was on TV last night, but don't go out of your way unless you dig Mila.