This film has the same story as "Showdown in Manila" - loud advertising, directors harping on past failures, more or less sensible trailers and the constant hope of the audience that one day the film will shoot, and if it doesn’t shoot, it will be possible to laugh in the cinema - or the movie will turn out to be a waste of time, which you can still watch , if you turn off logic and enjoy either the picture, or the action, or the tits of models hired instead of actresses.
However, if after “Manila” it’s unlikely that anyone will buy into Nevsky (I’ll be fine, because I work as a reviewer), then Sarik had a trump card - a relatively successful drama “Earthquake” with sane special effects, the absence of Comedy Club members, some kind of unpredictability and tear-jerking (but amateurish directorial moves and character leaks, which almost ruined the picture). It was this film that gave me hope for at least a passable popcorn movie with a lot of action, special effects and fan service. Well, I went, then.
Some here, after summing up last year’s results, ask: “..what the hell is Manila doing in the disappointments of the year?"But because they expected at least something from her: at least some action, at least some gags, the same thing happened here - I didn’t even get what I wanted - the film is very weak. But how much? More details , by the list.
- Plot. It’s not that he’s poor, no, he’s very primitive. Remember the TV series about "Power Rangers"And how childish were the plots? Here it is exactly the same: once upon a time, superheroes were created in the USSR. But the project merged with the collapse of the Union, and its curator fled, becoming a mutant. Many years later, this curator decided to attack Moscow and flooded it with armies of clones . Only those same mutants from the project can help. Well, okay, Sarik copied “He-People”, that’s all right. What about the script?
- Scenario. It is wretched and single-celled: a huge number of holes, the most important plot details are spoken out in single-celled dialogues (what prevented them from being replaced with flashbacks, what?!), unfired guns (for example, the Bear talked about the number of his transformations and why it is dangerous for him - this moment was interesting, but remained unsolved, as well as Ksenia’s past and the absolutely stupid moment of revealing the fact who gave her the ring) and a lot of nonsense with blunders.
- Atmosphere - it does not exist at all, since there are no factors that form it: it was not possible to create Sovietness (titles in this style did not help at all), there is no drama of occupied Moscow - what happened to the President and the Government? Why didn’t they show it, instead, like last time, they depicted all sorts of riots and reprisals against civilians using bots with dialogues and snippets of news releases?
- Characters and actors. The idea is actually good and all the heroes have some kind of backstory (and if it were visualized, it would be very nice), and they are diverse, they have good and very cool special abilities:
- Arsus. Pampushny played with his face better than others (due to experience), but there was nothing to play - there was little drama (and that was not revealed until the end), not the best combat, and the graphics of the bear were a bit let down. Arsus himself is an interesting hero and his abilities are justified (and his machine gun is awesome), but he is LITTLE, and his actions on the screen are of very little use.
- Lehr. It’s a strange thing - it commands stones, but, like Arsus, the point of them is only in crushing stupid bots - it didn’t help against the boss, and changing weapons to a magnetic whip... The result is the same and yes - having received the whip, Ler’s Earth magic almost didn’t work will use it.
- Khan. Having an excellent backstory (he competed with his brother on the topic of “who is stronger” and accidentally killed him) and the calm-as-water actor who played him, he could become a good “Ninja Flash” in the team. But lo and behold - just like with his comrades - he was only enough for bots; his abilities did not help against the final boss. And yes, who were these people whom he killed in the trailer for the film was never explained.
- Ksenia. As is expected in superheroics, the female character is responsible for the titty-ass visuals (now called fanservice). There was a little more sense from her abilities, and all the hand-to-hand combat was mainly on her. But even here it is ineffective in every sense - the games are weak, there were very few obscene camera angles, and you can’t save it with just an unbuttoned jacket - this has happened more than once. In terms of plot, it is the most unsolved of all.
- Final boss Kuratov - at first he was quite good. The mixture of abilities of the Tesla soldier, Bane and T-X from Terminator 3 plus good graphics and his power inspired respect for him. But in the end he was stupidly dumped and the final fighting game with him was short and helpless. The boss didn’t play combos, didn’t shock him - he just scattered the heroes with single blows.
- Enemies and extras. Kuratov's bots looked good, but their task was to be incredibly stupid (yes, they managed to detect Ksenia with a thermal imager, but they do not see or hear the enemies two steps away from them) and merge. Fortunately for them, the walkers and tanks were able to repel the heroes. The rest of the characters do not deserve attention, even the Doctor, who was needed in order to return Lera to duty and spoiler how to defeat the main villain.
To summarize the characters, their abilities were of very little use, only the final “joining of forces”, which somehow reminded me of the divisions of lives in Dendev’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and a similar move in the game and cartoon “Pirates of Dark Water”, saved the situation. Such uselessness for the superhero genre is unacceptable - apparently, the screenwriter wanted to find a balance between the "realism" of Nolan's Batman and Kick-Ass and the superpowers of the Avengers, but it's not that he couldn't - he didn't even try. And there is no chemistry between them, I don’t believe that this is a team, the script indicated that they knew each other, but did not indicate their shared past, and the director did not show it.
There were also really not enough sidekicks from Kuratov, so that each of the heroes would have a worthy and equal opponent - a good magic master of Lera with someone, a duel between Bear and, for example, Tiger, Khan with his resurrected brother, and pushing Ksyukha into a mud fight or just a catfight with the same model in latex.
Graphics and technical level. Despite harsh criticism from viewers during the trailers, I think what we saw was acceptable; Even though the Bear is not very well drawn, even if he is lame in places, there are views of destroyed Moscow, the anti-aircraft gunner robots are drawn perfectly, and in general the explosions, destruction and transfer of the Ostankino Tower are impressive. A lot of military equipment in action is also good - but not enough. The budget is visible, but, as we know, you can’t drag it out with graphics alone.
Action. That's why I went, that's what disappointed me to the extreme. First, almost all the action (and indeed all the most interesting things) was in trailers and promotional videos. Secondly, there are not so many hand-to-hand fights, they are either on Xenia (a good idea in the form of designs for the Black Widow, but spoiled by editing in order to hide the double), or on Arsus. Third, in general there is not enough action and the scenes are all short, no more than 40% of the film. The abundance of cables will not please everyone either.
The main problem is the lack of physics: I don’t believe in the strength of the Bear’s blow and the power of his minigun, the enemies are not covered with holes and fly off somehow clumsily. There are also not enough combos and combinations, and only a certain number of double teams and clever graphics in places somehow pull out the action over the very trashy Russian TV series and sub-action films from NTV. There wasn't much variety brought in either.
Music. There’s nothing like that in the opening credits, the rest is just ordinary pretentious heroics, it didn’t catch your ears, and they won’t put it on your mobile phone. The main plus is that they didn’t introduce the Russian version of the title song - even Sarik realized that the viewer couldn’t stand listening to the song one more time."This crazy Gussky!" and runs away from the movie.
Humor - it simply doesn’t exist. They laughed mainly at the stupidity of the Bear and the loss of the heroes at the hands of the final boss.
Сonclusion: You probably already noticed that I almost didn’t talk about numerous borrowings and cliches - this is so obvious in the film that there was no point in nitpicking about it - but the awareness of the fact that EVERYTHING was almost completely stolen (except, in my opinion look, a positive cliché about the different nationalities of the heroes), hammers the last nail into the coffin of this film. This film is bad and didn’t even become a simple popcorn movie or trash that you could just laugh at heartily - a dull tramp that’s not worth going to see.
And it’s better for Sarik Andreasyan to just switch to producers - his team knows how to do graphics, but absolutely does not know how to do scripts. Therefore, let him prepare for thousands, like arrows flying at Jet Li in the film “Hero,” of devastating reviews, video reviews and minuses on film searches and everywhere. It’s not worth going to the movies, and if the reader wants, I can roughly retell the plot of the film in the comments.
Peace to all and bye!
Author: uranium
Especially for Fight-Films.Info
And his “mafia” came to my attention.
Elbrus Nukite,
Unfortunately or fortunately, I didn’t watch it. But in numerous reviews I saw watchable graphics. Then watch Earthquake next.
Thanks, I will look.
Elbrus Nukite,
Post here later when you see it.
uranium,
I looked. My opinion: it’s a good, decent film and it’s not about the special effects, although they are of a high quality for Russian cinema. One minus for me personally. I don’t accept it when children, globally, suffer in films. There is, for example, the film "Major", which is very strong, but I would not recommend it to anyone. I was in pain and I suspect that I lost some of my health while watching this film. But let's return to Sarik. My opinion has strengthened. He is not a guarantee. The film presses on the right keys inside, and without feeling false. You feel better for a few seconds. This is my personal opinion.
Elbrus Nukite,
I also don’t like it when children suffer on screen, but sometimes it needs to be shown for the tragedy to happen. But alas, this film is the ceiling for Sarik. His other film is coming up, about Vitaly Kaloev (not the one with Schwartz, Kaloev will be played by Nagiyev), let's see if it works out. And it’s better for him not to get involved in action films without a competent screenwriter and fight directors.
In Russia, why don’t we have books about superheroes? You have to shoot according to the books, you idiots. I know at least one that is quite suitable for this. It's called a Deus sex machine. Published a long time ago, but quite readable.
Thainn Holly,
In our country, a sensible book about the Wolfhound cannot be filmed, and the epics about the Three Bogatyrs have been turned into short stories. What kind of Deus Sexes are there...
but a continuation is already planned... and again, apparently, at our expense
Vantala,
It sucks. Now I don’t believe Sarik, nor do I trust Nevsky, and most likely I won’t go to his movies.
But there was no need to attack those who initially did not give this film a chance!!! We were right. =)
Celpaso,
Did I run into you? When I envisaged the possibility that the film could work out, I justified my position in detail (taking into account the Earthquake), my opponents had one argument (read in a childish schoolboy voice) - “this is Sarik Odriosyan / this is our movie, our fucking people don’t know how to film ".
I paid for my words and confidence (as well as for my readers) with my money, and I admit my mistake, you didn’t go to the movies to see Adkins’s latest fails and I didn’t make fun of you on this topic.
uranium,
I'm kidding. Don't get excited. :) In fact, the opponents’ argument was more than convincing (I mean that “Sarik filmed this”).
The man made his career on vulgar and low-grade comedies, which, thanks to a small budget and a large number of famous people on the screen, consistently paid off. He is a very good film businessman. Under his leadership, Moms were made in '12 (I didn't watch it), but according to many it was a very good movie, but that didn't stop him from releasing a bunch of bad films after that. At times he takes a big budget and films something big (Mafia, Earthquake, The Defenders).
That is why I personally have no hope for his films, even if from time to time he shoots something more or less suitable.
PS I went to see The Brothers Grimsby at the cinema for Scott, so I can understand you!!!
Celpaso,
Sarik needs to be a producer, but not a director of his films. I also have no hopes for his movie, but unlike Nevsky, he had trump cards: improved graphics, budgets for actors, Earthquake and Moms (I didn’t watch it either, but they really praised me greatly), and the trailer for The Defenders and the advertising campaign inspired (besides, Sarik took inspiration from sources I respect - the same Red Alert and Yuri's Revenge, from where he slammed anti-aircraft gunners and bots, as well as the scene with the planes attacking the "psi-dominator". Everything would be fine, but the script is hellish wretched, worse than single-celled.
The Brothers from Grimsby is actually a one-time film, I wouldn’t call it shit - Sashka Kogan, as always, burns and provokes, and Adkins is still a great guy. However, even here, Kogan also showed a strong drop in the bar compared to Borat and Bruno.