Ultraviolet (2006)
Directed by Kurt Wimmer
No — Ultraviolet is not especially woke, scoring 20 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Ultraviolet arrives from 2006 with the weary confidence of a film that knows exactly what it is and has no interest in defending itself.
Consciousness Markers
The villain Daxus schemes to profit from a new epidemic by selling a daily-purchase antidote, and the ArchMinistry is a corporate world-government, giving the film a mild corporate-greed critique.
Violet is a capable female 'one-woman army' protagonist, but the film frames her as an action star and maternal protector rather than advancing any explicit feminist thesis.
The cast is led by Milla Jovovich with a moderately diverse supporting ensemble, but the film makes no comment on or effort toward representation; diversity is incidental to a 2006 action production.
The film gestures at themes of societal hatred and a closing vow to protect the world, but it is overwhelmingly a stylized action piece with minimal moralizing.
The backstory briefly mentions super-soldiers created to 'subjugate and exterminate the third world,' but this is a throwaway plot detail with no sustained racial commentary.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext appear anywhere in the film.
No environmental or climate themes are present; the dystopia is driven by disease and fascism, not ecological collapse.
No body-positivity themes or messaging are present.
No neurodivergence themes or characters are present.
The film is set in a fictional future and makes no revisionist claims about real historical events.
Why it received this score
Ultraviolet arrives from 2006 with the weary confidence of a film that knows exactly what it is and has no interest in defending itself. Kurt Wimmer's dystopia gives us hemophages, a vampire-adjacent underclass rounded up by a corporate world government called the ArchMinistry, and a villain who engineers an epidemic so he can sell the antidote by the day. There is a critique of corporate appetite buried in there somewhere, though it is delivered with the subtlety of a boot to the sternum. The film is against greed. It is also against fascism. It would like us to know both things, briefly, before returning to the slow-motion flips.
Milla Jovovich plays Violet, a super-soldier who protects a nine-year-old boy marked for death, and the film is content to let her be a one-woman army in a tight costume. This is a female protagonist of the blunt, physical variety, maternal in the final act, lethal in the first, and the film never pauses to make an argument about any of it. The supporting cast is diverse in the unremarked way that action cinema of the period managed, which is to say the faces vary and nobody says a word about it. If the film has a thesis, it is that leather looks good in blue light.
The moralizing, such as it is, surfaces twice. A line of backstory mentions super-soldiers built to subjugate and exterminate the third world, a detail dropped and abandoned within seconds. The closing vow to protect the world from societal hatred lands with a straight face before the credits. Neither moment carries weight, because the film is not built for weight. It is built for rooftop fights and gravity-defying nonsense, and it was rewarded with a nine percent approval rating and a CinemaScore of D plus. I have sat through worse. I have rarely sat through anything this sincere about being this silly.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
In the late 21st century, a subculture of humans have emerged who have been modified genetically by a vampire-like disease, giving them enhanced speed, incredible stamina and acute intelligence. As they are set apart from "normal" and "healthy" humans, the world is pushed to the brink of worldwide civil war aimed at the destruction of the "diseased" population. In the middle of this crossed-fire is - an infected woman - Ultraviolet, who finds herself protecting a nine-year-old boy who has been marked for death by the human government as he is believed to be a threat to humans.
Questions about Ultraviolet
Is Ultraviolet woke?
No — Ultraviolet is not especially woke, scoring 20 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Based.
Does Ultraviolet have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Eat the Rich (30). On Eat the Rich: The villain Daxus schemes to profit from a new epidemic by selling a daily-purchase antidote, and the ArchMinistry is a corporate world-government, giving the film a mild corporate-greed critique.
How does Ultraviolet compare to other 2006 movies?
It ranks #34 of the 211 films from 2006 we've scored; their average is 11. The wokest is An Inconvenient Truth (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.