Monday, March 06, 2006

Movie Review: 16 Blocks & a UV

First, I gotta tell ya - some things make me wonder who you have to blow, to get a movie made. Cuz the Wayan Brothers have that market locked up. They've got a new movie coming out where Marlon Wayans plays a midget thief who has to pretend to be a child in order to get back a gem he stashed.

Wasn't this a Bugs Bunny cartoon?

The scary part is...it actually looks funny, as stupid as it looks.

16 Blocks
When I first read about this I instantly thought about the old Clint Eastwood movie, "The Gauntlet". The premise is the same; Bruce Willis plays Eastwood's role as a down-and-out cop who is tasked with picking up a witness, played by Mos Def, and taking him to the courthouse to testify. The title of the movie refers to the 16 blocks in Manhattan that Willis has to take the witness, from a downtown precinct to the courthouse. They even included the scene with the city bus.

That's about where the similarities end. Eastwood's character was down on his luck, but still a force to be reckoned with; Willis' character is out of shape and a drunkard, past his prime and barely holding on for early retirement. He's like the old horse put out to pasture, waiting to die; life sucks and he knows it.

The catch? Well, there are plenty and I won't ruin the surprises - but Mos Def plays an annoying but likeable guy who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, and saw a cop do something he shouldn't have. This cop has ties to some pretty high placed people, so no one seems to want him to live.

Except Willis' character. They've got 2 hours to get 16 blocks alive, with every cop in the city seemingly after them.

It's fun watching this beat-down, useless, overweight cop show us a glimpse of the cop you can believe he used to be. It's dim, like a light bulb that's quit but manages to give you one last burst of light - but it's there, and you find yourself pulling for him and Mos to survive.

The story itself is simplistic, but there is a subtle complexity to it that Willis and Def bring out of their characters - and it is, indeed, a character driven story.

The Trickster gives it 3-1/2 bananas out of 5. Go see, have fun.

Ultraviolet
Milla Jova...Jovolvo...Jovulva...Jovovich is the new action heroine; it's going to take something dramatic to bring her down. Having watched the hot chicks in tight clothes in Underworld and Aeon Flux (both films you can't help but draw comparisons to), I can say that Milla's got them beat just on pure moxie.

The story (no surprise here) is simple. It's The Future, and there was a virus released that turned everyone into homophobes. I mean hemato-somethings. Vampires, apparently, except they don't suck blood. They're just uber-ninjas with healing ability, heightened senses and a problem with sunlight. Anyway, everyone's afraid of them, the CDC is now running the show and the government has been wiping out the Vamps.

Now they're fighting back.

There's more to the story but don't bother - this isn't about the story. This is a live-action comic book, and the opening credits are cunningly set up with fake comic book covers of our heroine to reinforce that mantra - Do Not Treat Anything You Are About To See Seriously, This Is A Comic Book!

In that, they've succeeded. Ultraviolet is larger than life, a femme fatale who could make Aeon Flux look like a rank amateur and send Neo running back into the Matrix. Her clothes and hair change colors inexplicably, like a body-sized mood ring. There's never any explanation for this, but really - who cares? It's Milla in a tight bodysuit, are we really watching it for fashion tips?

By the way - I now believe it's written into her contract that she must appear partially nude in all her movies. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just sayin', is all.

The entire movie is filmed in a diffuse-glow effect that's all too reminiscent of Sky Captain, not a movie you want to be compared to. In fact, that's all I found myself doing throughout the entire movie - making comparisons. Matrix, Aeon Flux, Gunkata (yes, there were scenes stolen from that movie too)...it's surreal, gravity defying fun. There's even a scene that'll make the Matrix's "bullet time" effects feel like watching an hourglass; let's see Neo dodge a hail of bullets when he's surrounded, hmm?

All of this sounds like a rip-roaring good time, but...the movie loses it's way. It forgets that it was supposed to be a comic book, and *gasp* tried to have a story. Big mistake, because that's where the movie starts to lose it's way. It tries to get deep and all it does is splash around in a shallow puddle of muddy water, detracting away from the enjoyment of the overdone special effects and ninja-like action.

Ultraviolet ends with a hint that there could be more coming; as much as I'd enjoy seeing Milla's naked butt twitch from side to side again, some things just aren't worth it.

The Trickster gives it 2 bananas out of 5.

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