Review of Polar (2019) by Calderra — 04 Aug 2020

From the very first scene, it's clear the script writer doesn't speak native English. The low-rent camerawork and costuming don't help. A lot of scenes looks like a bunch of Eurotrash rejects from The Matrix stepped into a student film. At one point the evil villain goes over his master plan. He literally just explains how retirement plans work, and then the Matrix rejects say "please explain". I think most 18-year-olds with a decent job can already follow the plot kid, but the director really thinks he sounds like a genius. It's like in a low-rent horror movie when a "scientist" tries to sound smart by reading a page from a gradeschool science book.

Director Jonas Akerlund is famous for his music videos which I've personally never thought were very well-made. They're usually just very weird, which works for music. But they weren't very technically well-shot. In a film, all his flaws are amplified.

It's sad because Mads Mikkelsen is amazing. Fans of his later performance in Hannibal already know how amazing Mads is as the sort of quiet intimidation that makes for a perfect assassin. He really acts the pants off his role, even while the Eurotrash around him stumble over lines and bad makeup and worse accents.

People will say "just turn off your brain". An enjoyable movie shouldn't have to involve absolutely insulting drivel. Here's a quick example. The bad guy needs exactly $29 million or whatever. So he decides to enact a giant plan to steal - wait for it - exactly $29 million. Except to do this, he's going to have to hire an absurd number of top-notch hitmen from around the world. That's going to cost, what, $29 million? So this job - at best - is going to break even? Come on. It isn't hard to write yourself out of this hole either - just make the payoff something absurd like a billion dollars. Why not?

Sigh. So this is a really stupid movie with annoying direction. Only watch it if you want to see Mads Mikkelsen kick some ass, and don't be afraid to fast forward the dumb Eurotrash nonsense between the action scenes. You won't miss anything.