Cartoonish ‘Ultraviolet’ surprisingly diverting

In theaters

ULTRAVIOLET, written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, 88 minutes, rated PG-13.

Kurt Wimmer’s new cartoon action fantasy, “Ultraviolet,” is exactly the movie it set out to be – slight and kinetic, a silly yet surprisingly diverting film patterned after a wealth of other movies backed by more substantial budgets.

It’s a video game made for the big screen, more than happy to stick within the boundaries of formula and never break from them, yet it’s better than most critics will admit. Few coming to this movie will seek greatness, though they will expect fringe, underground entertainment that comes through with compelling, well-choreographed action. For the most part, “Ultraviolet” delivers.

The film, which Wimmer based on his own script, follows brooding Violet (Milla Jovovich), a chameleonlike powerhouse with killer shades, killer lips and a killer bod, which was infected years ago by a man-made virus that now has turned her into a Hemophage.

A Hemo what? A Hemophage. A Hemo who? Look, she’s part-vampire and part-human, with the sort of superhuman powers that help her take out hundreds of armed men when the need arises. In “Ultraviolet,” that need arises often, particularly since there is a government-run plot afoot to kill all Hemophages, whose toxic blood poses a deadly risk to the human race.

As the film begins, Violet is charged by a superior, Nerva (Sebastien Andrieu), to enter a maximum-security facility and retrieve what she believes is a weapon designed to rid the world of Hemophages. Instead, what she finds is a boy named Six (Cameron Bright), who might hold the key to curing Hemophages of the deadly toxins coursing through their bodies.

Since the evil Vice Cardinal Daxus (Nick Chinlund) wants Six back, a war between him and Violet ignites, with Violet essentially turning into a Cuisinart as she whirls about the screen in an effort to protect Six from Daxus’ henchmen.

What ensues is mindless fun, a film best enjoyed on a visceral level. Several sequences look as if they were designed less for the screen than for the new Xbox 360, which isn’t so bad if you’ve seen what that machine can churn out. Klaus Badelt’s driving techno score and William Yeh’s slick editing give the movie added life, which is a good thing since too often it recalls a wealth of better-known films, “Blade” and “The Matrix” series chief among them.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

JARHEAD, directed by Sam Mendes, written by William Broyles Jr., 122 minutes, rated R.

The latest Sam Mendes movie, “Jarhead,” takes us back to a past that feels oddly like the present. There’s good reason for that. In the film, we’re in the Middle East, Bush is in office, and we’re fighting a war that few seem to understand. The difference? The Bush in question is the senior Bush, Saddam Hussein is in power and the war being fought is the Gulf War.

From screenwriter William Broyles Jr., himself a former Marine who based his script on Anthony Swofford’s best-selling account of his own experiences in the Gulf War, the movie features almost no combat. It’s a psychological drama first, with fiery oil wells, exploding bombs and burned corpses not at the center of the action, but rounding out the periphery to help create the grim mood. This is a war movie in which the action either is about to happen or already has happened, so it runs counter to most of today’s big-budget war movies in that it refuses to pepper the proceedings with the sort of bloodshed that plays out nightly on, say, the evening news.

Instead, Mendes recalls elements of Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” in that he draws the movie inward, focusing on the Marines – or the jarheads, as they’re called here – who are sent abroad to fight a vague enemy. What they face instead is a months-long waiting game, with the real fight coming down to fending off boredom and the enemy growing within.

Jake Gyllenhaal is Swofford, who is recruited by the cigar-chomping Sykes (Jamie Foxx) to become a sniper along with Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), his sketchy partner with an unfavorable past, and a group of other men. With no action to be had on the ground in Saudi Arabia, the men find themselves fighting the war unraveling in their heads. What’s happening at home? Are their wives and girlfriends being faithful, or are they having affairs with other men? Mounting evidence of the latter tears some apart just as they’re at last called upon to fight.

But what fight is there for them in this war? The Gulf War was fought mostly by air and these men are on foot. It’s the frustration that comes with the dawning realization that their time in the desert may have been for nothing that gives “Jarhead” its greatest, ugliest complexity, which slams home near the end.

Grade: B

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.