Dear readers, let me tell you a fairy tale about a bad scientist who, instead of helping people, decided that he alone had the right to own special red cells that give immunity from all kinds of energy except fire, and about a good guy who got involved in the whole story without wanting to. The fairy tale will be long, confusing and very scary, so especially nervous I ask not to read further, or imagine that this is not a fairy tale, despite the very magical plot.
Otherwise, as a modern fairy tale, this creation of cinema cannot be attributed. It can pretend to be fantastic, although all the fantastic in it is only a pathetic semblance of space combat in the first minutes - it was more like a puppet screensaver from a primitive computer game, and this is taking into account where technology has already stepped, but imagine that this is intended - fairy tales are forgiven theatricality and convention. She can pretend to be a detective trying to understand the puzzle of the plot, although the main puzzle goes not to the characters, but to the viewer, who can easily get confused about who is who and what to eat with. It can pretend to be mysticism, action, horror, drama - yes, anything, because it is not very well digestible vinaigrette, in which not too combined ingredients are mixed, and in not very digestible proportions, and strong scenes for which you want to applaud are interspersed with those that could be rewinded, if a mosaic-like plot did not consider them important and would not crumble into small pieces without them.
In fact, there are no unimportant scenes in this film, although some seem to be inserted, but later the meaning inherent in them is revealed. What at first seems simple and understandable, like transparent glass, suddenly becomes cloudy and it is difficult to know where the real and the fake. The enemy assumes the guise of a friend, a friend, remembering the year-old tragedy, is ready to send you to the next world, clouds of gray smoke absorb both truth and lies, turning them into the opposite. And the main reason for all that is happening is some red cells, the nature of which will not be explained to us, they, like a fabulous artifact, simply exist, they act, but how and from where it is a fairy tale, and in it all these conventions with logical justification are simply not needed. Let it be cruel, in which they beat, burn and kill, but fairy tales for adults are also needed.
Let the main villain does not look like Kaschei externally, but in essence he is a real Kaschei, whose immortality is hidden not at the end of the needle from the island of Buyana, but in those very notorious red cells that he, like a drug addict, is forced to take daily, so as not to lose all his cosmos - yes, far from John de Lancy to the genius of Millar, and the role is absolutely flat, as well as the character about whom only one thing is known - he is very, very evil. It is difficult to imagine that the main character was not at all heroic - a drunken, continuing to recall the tragic events of a year ago, a former either a policeman, a detective, or a bodyguard - we will remain unknown to what the hero of Michael Bien did before, except that he is not too loved, up to the fact that, starting with kicking out teeth, they will end up behind bars for an indefinite long time. But fairy tales can also be different, including not at all heroic, your obedient author even had to read such as a child, the main thing is that everything ends well.
Did it end well here? And yes and no. Fairytale rules are in full force, so you can guess for yourself, just watch carefully, or you may not understand the essence of the final episode. And why is the end not good at the same time, if it is a fairy tale, you ask. The answer is simple - there is no hint that they lived happily ever after, there is only uncertainty ahead, and the red cells themselves can rather be compared with a curse than a blessing, they are like rejuvenating apples - for someone desirable, and for someone counting down the beginning of the end.
7 out of 10
The film is quite little known - your obedient author loves rarities, and even the author's translation of Vartan Dokhalov - if you have similar tastes, just tune in to the right way and get an hour and a half of pleasure, the main thing is only running away from the screen put on pause, otherwise you will get confused.