Reviews

Before talking about the actual movie I must first get this off my chest; the amount of people flocking to see this and me cruising around the city for a few hours while running up a vast bill on futile attempts to advance book a few seats was...inspirational. I have never witnessed such a packed theater, not in Russia anyway. I firmly believe that if Mr. Spielberg somehow managed to resurrect Mr. Fellini, who for some strange reason invited James Cameron and perhaps Tom Hanks to make a 300 million dollar picture, on its opening day the queues in Moscow's cinemas would be shorter compared to this. A slightly sick form of patriotism which I, as a future film-maker could only stand and adore. Thanks for hearing me out on that one...now, onto the movie itself. From the very start it looked and felt better than the last time around. The credits are done in quite an original manner and caught me off-guard, I was all set for the good flick up ahead. However as the movie progressed it began to regress. The acting which seemed pretty good in the first hour (fueled by a few unoriginal but damn good scenes) slowly but surely began to get annoying. I'd attribute that to the writing but more on that later. Having never read the book (and I'm keeping that up) I was pleasantly surprised by the twist and turns that the story takes. Again, that lasted until about half-way through. Keeping in mind that this experience lasts over two hours, it got to a point where the plot degraded into whatever course necessary to show us a few more CGI filled shots. One of such scenes centres on a dog collared vampire driving a Mazda RX-8 around a vertical hotel wall at heights over 50 metres. It's an absolute joke, one during which I presume 14yr old kids will find themselves breathless. CGI for the sake of CGI is s**t. Sorry, the Matrix this is not. No doubt someone on the other end of the web shall proclaim 'Oh shut up, this cost 10 times less!'. Sure, but the Matrix wasn't shot in Russia where the average crew member makes less than 30$ a day. This could have been a great film if there existed a Russian script doctor. I don't think we have one (yet). With careful tailoring this script could been a blast for the mind also rather than just being good old eye candy. Maybe it does not have to last more than 1h45m. Another thing which does not do any favours for the international release of this film are the moments that will be lost in translation and I mean both dialogue and picture wise. An example is the stretched out final showdown. This takes a potshot at the Russian showbiz elite The guests, who are supposed to be all on the dark side (George Lucas anyone?) are played by famous Russian celebrities. One shot was a little disturbing; a music producer who died recently is shown getting his chest torn by super-powerful yo-yos (?!?).

Overall this a good effort hampered by an understandable desire 'to be Hollywood'. I'd like to mention the marketing campaign is quite likely to be in the same budget as the film itself. A redistribution of these funds would have done the movie good in the long run. All style no soul is the motto which I hope pays off when Russians begin applying the professionalism earned/borrowed/stolen from America to flicks featuring both of the above.