Movie reviews

MIMORADNA UDALOST (EMERGENCY SITUATION)

Watchable. Inspired by a real 14-minute incident, this Czech comedy is engaging even if flawed. Some bits are hilarious, e.g. when the train is rolling down the track backwards with a political campaign poster on it saying: "We're not moving back", most are moderately witty, it's all pleasant owing to very characteristic protagonists, each individually odd. While all events fall into the right place sooner or later, at some point the interior of the carriage shows the train moving forward instead - knowing who was seated where and what happened to which door. That blunder aside, the plot is full of surprises, not just about each character but revealing new ones and new props. Best of all, it's all plausible. The first half of the end credits sees scenes completing the action. 

LEAVE

Recommended. A thriller rather than a horror, though with an apparition and surround sound effects. But it's not what's scary, the truly frightening thing is it all could have happened, it must have been inspired by some real life cases. A feminist movie in a way it points out how violence occurs. The opening, with the police getting a call about a baby abandoned at a cemetery, is outstanding. The plot in which the survivor, now adult, travels to Norway - the main action was shot and takes place in and around Bergen - awe-inspiring itself, to investigate her roots, is original as well. What she finds, how appearances are deceiving, is gripping. One smart movie. 

HAUNTED MANSION

Watchable. First I saw it dubbed in Polish, at least all songs were in the English original. Good translation by Kuba Wecsile made it bearable. As for the movie itself, the kid is off, too pretentious and hardly 9 - actor Chase W. Dillon was 13 at the time of shooting - and there's too much banal chatter but "Harry Potter"-like ghosts move within, across, out of and into pictures, top visual effects seamlessly blend both worlds. At Warsaw's KinoGram you hear surround sound throughout, even with no Atmos. 

PLAN 75

Recommended. A brutal opening. The very first shot is bloody, in the next few minutes the man kills himself. Powerful. This hate crime precedes a true horror, though with no more onscreen brutality. Restrained performances, subtle clues, top politeness of the Japanese and a Filipino worker conceal an unsettling reality: the elderly, while still capable, are pushed out of the job and housing markets, just because of their age. The insidious offer to be put down in exchange of a moment of luxury before the demise is chilling to the viewer all the more that the protagonists accept the deal, sometimes with gratitude. Horrifying how dispensable they are even to their families, let alone to the young people out there. Their bodies are treated like animal carcasses and dealt with by a waste removal company. Their personal belongings are sorted like in WW2 Nazi concentration camps. Despite some cultural ambiguity, it horrifies worldwide, no matter what your social or historical associations are. 

Reviewed from the distributor's screener, cinematic reception might differ.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE 

Recommended. AI, disinformation, augmented reality, deepfakes - we live in this world already. The plot is astonishingly well grounded in our reality and foresees perfectly realistic dangers. Taken how long movie production takes, the script is unbelievably up-to-date in this respect. The opening titles hear kind of an echo of the "Mission Impossible" music theme. The whole opening sequence is like "The Hunt for Red October" on fast forward and ends with images of bodies under an ice pack - they stick to your mind. Living people impress just as well. Not only obligatory Tom Cruise in the leading role but also Frederick Schmidt as Zola, Hayley Atwell as "inherently resourceful" Grace, Vanessa Kirby as Alanna. Polish actor Marcin Dorociński successfully mocks Russian accent as the captain of the Sevastopol submarine. There's one more Polish element: when one of Grace's passports is scrutinised, it's a mock-Polish one with a Greek name inside. Benji Dunn (comedian Simon Pegg)  brings in some humour: "Do you know what amount of pressure I'm under?!" when it's Ethan Hunt who has to jump on a train. The Vienna-Innsbruck Orient Express ride was shot in England and Norway, but it's all about deception, isn't it. The famous 2-years-trained-for Norwegian cliff jump is nothing yet. The mind-boggling running from the runaway train, with the train breaking one carriage at a time, a climb, an "Inception"-like image - seamlessly and naturally composed into the sequence keep you on the edge of the seat. The Atmos sound surrounds you in a handful of scenes, though distinctly, at least in an Atmos screening room. Now that Hunt's got the complete key and needs to locate the sunken submarine, I expect more mind-blowing action in Arctic waters to come in part two.