mheuermann

This movie isn't so much bad but rather pointless. Just before the credits roll in an ominous white 'for Douglas' fades in out of the black. I seriously hope that the director doesn't refer to the late Douglas Adams, author of the highly successful Hitchhikers 'Triology' cause frankly Douglas will be turning in his grave, seeing what has become of his utterly enjoyable books. Let me tell you about the high points, few that there are. The most funny bits are actually when Stephen Fry reads from the original book and the pictures are merely illustrations. Which just makes you wanna go back to the books and read them all again rather than watch another minute of this half baked adaptation. The marketing strategy is only to obvious. The Hitchhikers guide has sold more than 16 million copies, so we try to cash in on that popularity by making a film with the same name regardless of the fact that it is rather tricky to adapt for the screen. I am a big fan of the books and I thought the trailer to this movie was quite funny, but unfortunately the movie isn't. Naturally, you are bound to be disappointed when you finally go to see a movie version of books that you love so dearly but was that charmless white robot really the best they could do for the highly likable character of Marvin the depressed. To name just one of the major let downs. One of the books outstanding features is Adams' sheer inventiveness and shameless exaggeration. Condensed into a 100 minute movie the many ideas suddenly appear utterly random and arbitrary. I think it would be rather tricky to follow the plot of the film without having read the books and nearly impossible to understand what is so extraordinary about the books on the evidence of this film. I won't even bemoan the fact that so many of my favourite bits never made it into the film script, but the parts that actually now make up the story don't seem particularly funny, nor imaginative, nor clever. And a bit predictable at that. Halfway through you just don't care anymore and all you want is for this mediocre movie to be over and done with.

Let's be fair here. Anyone that attends a movie sporting a poster like Ultraviolet and expects believable characters, an intriguing plot and world class acting is a bit of a fool. In my experience, those scantily clad action babes with big swords aren't really famous for their Shakespearian dialogs. However, I think the reason why this one really sank like the proverbial turd in the swimming pool is that the director trusted Milla's looks to disguise the fact that there isn't really anything remotely coherent or interesting going on here. Well, maybe he managed to lure enough folks into the cinema before word got out what a mess this is.

What I find slightly irritating is that with just a little bit of effort, this could have been at least bearable. So Wimmer has the star, he has the computers, he has the money and all he can come up with is this half baked demo of fight scenes that look as if something went wrong during the editing, i.e. as if they used only the footage that was supposed to be deleted. There are so many awful things about this movie that it's impossible to list them all and hard to pick the worst scene. One of the absolute low points is undoubtedly the bike chase. You can't help but ask yourself why anyone bothered. I mean, during the test screening someone must have had the guts to stand up an let the producers know how utterly boring and pointless this is. Frankly, you suspect that the producers had nodded of at this point already, otherwise they would have canned the project there and then. Personally, I think it would have been so much more exciting (mind you it would be impossible to have it less exciting) to have Milla simply jog down the block with a villain or two in hot pursuit. Instead you get Milla on a bike in cyberspace, some inept gunmen inside two choppers that fail to miss Milla with such precision that you can't help but feel cheated.

Half the time the image screams 'blue screen' at you and at other times you simply want to fast forward cause if there is one thing worse here than the rather boring action scenes, its the utterly laughable dialog in between. Right at the beginning Milla introduces herself with 'My name is Violet and I was born into a world you may not understand.' Spot on you think a little later, as this movie fails to make any sense whatsoever. The only thing you actually understand is that in the highly unlikely event that our society deteriorates into anything remotely resembling the world of Ultraviolet, becoming a guard is not a very wise career move.

It's rather tricky to rate and review a 4 minute film but I'm gonna try anyway. From the very beginning so called "experimental film" has dealt with the material of the film as such and there is a whole tradition of films made without the help of a camera. You can scribble on it, you can scratch it or as it was done here, you can glue two dimensional and transparent objects to it, then sandwich the negative onto it and let it run past a light source in order to expose it. Some people still think that film depicts reality, whereas all it really does is depict a reproduction of reality. But surely there must be another reality than what Hollywood is trying to sell us and Brakhage's approach is as simple as it is beautiful. In Mothlight wings of insects and thin leaves flutter over the screen and since each frame has no relation to it's preceding image, the outcome is rather fidgety. However, if you relax and stay focused at the same time you will realise that watching Mothlight is like staring at a bright light that is surrounded by moths. When I watched it for the first time, I thought the effect was rather impressive. You might argue that you don't go to the movies to watch moths flutter around bright lights but there is so much more to it. Experimantal film has always questioned our way of perceiving the world and Mothlight is no exception. Only it's also very beautiful and thus very entertaining.