It may have a little too much of the supernatural routine, and far too little 3D, but The Dark World, a beautifully made film about a group of students who awake evil powers in northern Russia, is a fairly good watch.
That said, I'll admit that I wasn't expecting much when I went to see "Russia's first 3D movie" late last night.
Not that I have lost faith in contemporary Russian cinema, which seems to be a bit of a fad these days, but having endured 90 minutes of extraordinarily low-concept sham, Tsvetok Dyavola (The Devil's Flower), from Katya Grokholskaya just days earlier, I was preparing myself for the worst.
But I was glad to be proved wrong. What Anton Megerdichev's Tyomny Mir, to give it its Russian name, lacks in subject matter it more than makes up for in beauty. The film's incredibly lush imagery and some very crafty camerawork brought to mind the Lord of the Rings and Avatar as I sat neglecting my popcorn.
The storyline is simple enough: a group of university students set out for an expedition into the wilderness of northern Russia to collect folklore, but then - alas! - a love triangle shifts everything, and the students find themselves landed with a nightmare instead of grandmother's bedtime stories, with sorcerers and magic stones and the inevitable battle of good-versus-evil.
Beautiful, as I say, but somewhat lacking in direction. The film seems to be part fantasy, part action (with a good helping of bloodshed and gore), and part teenage peer pressure movie, with some social and political issues thrown in for good measure.
And then, there is - sadly - far too little 3D, and this gets you to wondering. Wasn't it supposed to be the film's main selling point? I wouldn't say that I went purely for the 3D - in fact, I had been warned I shouldn't get my expectations too high - but a measly 20 minutes? I mean, what do they take us for?
The Dark World's producers, to their credit, cautioned it would be too expensive to convert the entire film into 3D. Producer Ruben Dishdishyan said in July those 20 minutes cost his company, Central Partnership, four million rubles ($132,000).
But is this really so much for what was hyped to be Russia's inauguration into the third dimension? Especially when compared with the eye-watering $40 million budget of Nikita Mikhalkov's latest flop, this year's sequel to his Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun.
Many viewers, though, didn't seem to mind only getting 20 minutes of 3D.
"I'm not interested in just another 3D blockbuster. I've lost count of them already," Ivan, 23, told me.
But I, for one, wasn't so sure. It's either one or the other. Either you give us 3D like you promised, or stick to the good old 2D, I wouldn't mind that at all. Occasional urgent whispers of "Put the glasses on, the 3D is beginning!" and "Sorry, you missed it!" failed to convince me Russia had passed the third dimension exam. Cribbing!
Still, the Dark World is a pretty good watch, but if you want the "real 3D," or the real "blockbuster" for that matter, you might want to look elsewhere.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Korolyov)
