Mysterious Forest On the basis of myths and legends, the history of the eternal struggle between good and evil is twisted, this time in the form of a confrontation between an obsessed girl and a descendant of a great sorcerer. “The Dark World” is an example of a good Russian mainstream, which is partly naive, but quite capable of pleasant surprise.
Among the colorful scenery and good staging, the director unnecessarily flirts with close-ups, because of which all the savour of action is lost, and an inept trimming of details appears on the screen. And because the film, then plunges into an atmospheric and terrible mysterious forest, full of sinister secrets and unexpected encounters, or just painfully tormented by the uneven presentation of the action, in its most climax moments. As for the technical side of the three-dimensional format, as such, 3D, there is not so much, but the voluminous game with the hall is felt and present, although the film will lose little when viewed in the usual plane. In other words, with cheerful beginnings, here every detail literally did not reach a high level, regularly raising a good pace, beautiful special effects and the dynamics of the story itself, but each time breaking in one place or another.
The same goes for the script and the casting. The two leading actors still cope quite well: the heroine perfectly imitates Linda, from the video “I am a crow”, every minute tilting her head with an incomprehensible empty look, and Ivan Zhidkov brightly and successfully fits into the role of a botanist-courtress, as opposed to his role as a major boy from “Black Lightning”. The rest, no matter with what heterogeneous color would not be selected, look already some kind of addition, and then completely consumables as the action, so that there was someone to remove in the frame from the plot. No other backstory and bright participation in what is happening, according to the canons of the genre, a group of students make cannon fodder, only how much such a move is justified in the concept of the film is a rather controversial issue. The main villain for some reason gives Zavulon-Verzhbitsky, as if the role was written for Victor, and he refused at the last moment, and demons-special forces with witch archers play “orcs and elves” apparently with the task of modernizing fantasy and claiming originality.
The script part makes it feel like watching two different films in a row, separated since the advent of the helicopter. And the first has no final, and the second begins without any beginning, and where the first tells a horror film about an ancient cemetery in a lost forest and a classic group of teenagers, and the second is a fantasy action about a magical shield, as an artifact of great power and power. The contrast of the first and second half of the film is striking, and the film throws almost from atmospheric horror into pop quotes of Hollywood and even Asian action films.
But, to give credit, the film in all this and revealed, not shy of being himself. Cinema is not embarrassed by excessive naivety, sometimes not too appropriate words of rich pathos or stupidity, and somewhere even quotes Asian fights in the manner of “House of flying daggers”, so that the viewer certainly guessed where the scene was taken from. And without a shadow of doubt and fear, the narrative flirts with genre basics and details, combining everything in a good and original set of tools with which this story is framed. The courage of the film is also expressed in the visual part, without bias in censorship and children's ratings. The heroine without embarrassment is well exposed, the characters are cruelly removed one after another, and in general here they shoot in the backs and chopped heads, blood is poured abundantly here and regular skirmishes with a lethal outcome occur. At the same time, there is an exploded helicopter, colorful flights of asteroids, mystical abilities and sometimes even spectacular plot twists that do not beat with their banality and obviousness. And although for our cinema, good films are as mysterious a forest as foggy jungles for the characters of the film, we sometimes have bright works.
And from that, with its shortcomings, the movie honestly puts on display all its cards, honestly scrolling before the viewer this mystical action, thrown from the fairy tale to the horror, then to the action movie. And perhaps, if the genre bias adhered to a single direction, and the general rhythm was devoid of knocks, it would turn out even better, but it would be a completely different movie, not similar to the existing result. And the result here is an honest and good movie, whose visual part will more than do other, sometimes much more multi-budget, Russian crafts of the fiction genre. And let the plot of the "Dark World" and ridicule the abundance of naive and pathetic elements and without embarrassment declare its secondary, yet it will please with good twists during the boring action, and the atmosphere of the film is able to immerse and keep for the time of viewing the audience and attention, and interest in what is happening. Because the film is really good, and for its bright virtues he can be forgiven a lot. For such a movie is really not ashamed, there is really something to see!
8 out of 10
Original