"Battle of the Magicians" honestly tries to be a good, kind, New Year's movie. However, she has so many shortcomings that they overshadow all the advantages and turn the film into memorable junk.
First of all, it is worth listing these advantages. First, it's a moral message. It is quite simple – “love works miracles”, “Friendship is strength”, and other simple things. The good news is that they are not distorted in the course of the plot, they do not turn into something like “Money is better than love and family” or “Robbery, betrayal, killing cops for your own purposes is cool”, as often happens with Russian mass cinema. Secondly, the moments in the film manifest the very atmosphere of New Year’s magic, for which it is worth watching such films. It is a pity only for each such moment there are a dozen moments with incredibly wretched graphics, but more on that later. Third, these are the main characters. Although the main character at first seems to be an emotionless pacifier, by the middle of the film she has a character. And in her relationship with a guy there is something very sweet and touching.
That's all the pluses. They are quite significant, but the drawbacks of the film are so many that its positive aspects are easy to miss. The main character, as already mentioned, at first seems to be a talking log, and the logic of her actions is very, very strange - sometimes it seems that she does not exist at all. Singing old songs disgusting, voiceover translation of the language of Morozov looks silly – it would be more appropriate to translate it in subtitles. And in the presence of the firmament of heaven, you can easily see the message “Don’t fly, children, into space, or God will punish you ... hmm ... that is, hell fire creatures will eat you.” Most spoil the impression of viewing the quality of graphics and the main villain.
In some places, the schedule looks like this. When she's a little on the screen. She's awful in places. Plastic decorations are disgustingly artificial and tasteless like a New Year’s decoration of a supermarket. The snow seems to be foam balls, and the green background behind the characters is painted so poorly that it seems as if they are standing against the background of a large TV, and not nature or a building. It looks pretty scary at times.
The villain. I don’t know if the creators wanted to make it scary, or funny, or crazy – neither of them succeeded. His motivation, “Nobody loves me, so I’ll destroy everyone!” is extremely silly. His attempts to cosplay the Joker turn into clown shams. He looks like a miserable whiner, not a terrible villain. Every time he appears on screen, his hand unwittingly reaches for his face. With each of his antics, it becomes shameful for those who decided to release it in wide distribution.
To sum up, “Battle of the Magicians” had a chance to become a good Russian New Year film. Not an imitation of the West, although it is full of references and parodies to Western films, not a remake of Soviet paintings, but something new. A true Russian blockbuster based on Russian culture. And I am very sad that the inept production and terrible graphics did not allow the film to become one.
5 out of 10
Original