This week, the Russian film “The Last Ronin” was released, which at first glance promised to become an important event for Russian cinema. The trailer promised a gloomy post-apocalyptic atmosphere, spectacular fights, a charismatic, stern protagonist played by Yuri Kolokolnikov, and something truly epic.
It seemed that viewers were in for a high-quality post-apocalyptic action game with references to cult films and games. This was supposed to be the Russian industry’s answer to Mad Max, Fallout and even The Last of Us.
However, in reality it turned out that “our expectations are our problems”; we saw a chaotic and drawn-out tape assembled from fragments of other people’s ideas. We have already watched this movie and…we were horrified.
Plot: scorched earth cliché
What is the film about?: after a global catastrophe, the world turned into a desert, where cartridges became the only currency. Lone wanderer Ronin, armed with a katana and a pistol without bullets, agrees to accompany the teenager Maria to a mysterious wall.
Although the plot may sound cliché, the story could have been an exciting road movie in a post-apocalyptic world, where a destroyed civilization becomes the perfect backdrop for the characters’ personal stories. It would seem that the film’s premise is convincing in order to immerse the viewer in the emotional journey of the characters, their development, complex moral choices and struggles with external and internal demons.
Plus, the concept of survival in an environment where cartridges have become currency, and clans of bandits, robots and cannibals are a real threat, opens up space for fresh ideas. But the director and screenwriter chose a different approach, which is called “copy-paste”. More on him later.
The whole story turns into a series of banal and poorly connected episodes. Instead of letting the viewer feel the story, the film simply talks it through. Many important points – Ronin’s past, his connection with his father, Maria’s motivation – remain either unrevealed or sound like dry retellings.
For example, Ronin teaches Maria about the workings of the world in the style of a lecturer, rather than through actions and visual elements. This not only breaks the pace, but also creates the feeling that this is not a film, but a radio play with minimal visual effort.
The journey itself, which could be the heart of the story, is devoid of drama.
The characters move from one location to another, as if moving from level to level in a computer game. Cannibals? We’ll fix it. Robots? Let’s be careful. Bandits? Let’s fight.
Instead of developing characters through encounters with danger, the film simply adds scenes for show. Unfortunately, instead of a road movie with a deep story, we got a collection of random scenes that barely connect to the overall plot.
Collection of borrowings: a patchwork quilt of other people’s ideas
Imagine a scenario that seems to be created from countless scraps of other films and games. Every scene, every dialogue is not a new work, but a compilation of borrowed ideas. The heroes do not so much travel through the wasteland as jump from one alien story to another, changing only the scenery.
The film looks like a collection of references, not united by a common idea or its own style.
Here are just a few of the “borrowed” points:
• «Mad Max“: a wasteland atmosphere with marauders and bandits who don’t seem to be afraid of radiation, but are obsessed with an apocalypse-style costume show
• The Last of Us: A gruff loner and a sarcastic teenage girl navigate danger, encounter cannibals, and gradually begin to resemble a dysfunctional family
• Fallout: the setting of a world where cartridges have become currency, and people stick together in clans, as if they were coming out of a shelter
• Counter-Strike: villain with a golden machine gun – looks like a misunderstanding, like someone inserted a character from Dust2 with a “Golden Arabesque”
• «Road“: The scene with the cannibals, which look truly creepy in the classic “Road”, loses its power here. Instead, we see poorly lit extras trampling through the chaos. They wanted to shock, but it turned out ridiculous.
• «Game of Thrones“: a nasty, grimacing blond villain with a crown on his head sits on a throne of machine guns. Well, just a hand and a face
• Films with Van Damme: Ronin’s morning training with a katana under the rays of the rising sun is reminiscent of iconic scenes with stretching and fighting techniques from action films of the 90s. At such moments, the hero clearly lacks his signature roundhouse kick
• «Consumers“: a fight in a narrow corridor, filmed like a cheap copy, where a katana works better than any bullet
• «Screamers“: strange robots that feel more like an homage to the creepy machines from this sci-fi thriller, but without their chilling realism. But with bad computer graphics
• «Six String Samurai” And “Book of Eli“: a wanderer with a weapon and a philosophical outlook on life
The list could go on for a long time, but it becomes obvious that turning this chaotic set of references into a coherent work turned out to be a task that the debutant director could not cope with.
A dwarf operator is inconvenient
The cinematography in The Last Ronin deserves its own discussion—and perhaps its own study. If there were awards for the strangest and most awkward camera angles, this film would definitely be in the finals. The camera here is either on its knees or lying on the floor, as if the operator could not stand the busy filming schedule and decided to film the world as small children and stray dogs see it.
Instead of adding movement or dimension to the scenes, the film almost completely ignores the use of drones or panoramic shots. Forget about wide shots that convey the grandeur of the wasteland or the enormity of the journey.
A very strange, unjustified shooting style that spoils the already bad impression of this film.
Provincial acting is unpleasant
Acting in The Last Ronin is an art form of its own. The art of unpredictability. Yuri Kolokolnikov, who plays Ronin, tries to create the image of a gloomy and mysterious hero. And although his dark gaze and quiet remarks work in places, he seems to walk around the entire film with a sign: “I’m only here for the poster.” Emotions? Minimum. Chemistry with your partner? Absent. His character seems to love his katana more than the people around him.
Diana Enakaeva, who plays teenager Maria, gives the audience the exact opposite experience. She either underplays, turning into a completely indifferent observer, or overacts so much that you want to turn off the sound. Her screams, hysterics and dramatic pauses are not acting, but role-playing in a school theater. This is especially evident in key moments where the viewer should empathize with the heroine, but instead feels shame for the character.
And, of course, the main villain played by Daniil Vorobyov. His pretentious speeches in French, grotesque antics and ridiculous poses are more reminiscent not of a villain, but of a hero in a comedy show.
The opening scene with the participation of Tikhon Zhiznevsky is a separate misunderstanding. The actor appears in the frame for literally five minutes, but at the same time he is prominently featured on advertising posters, as if he is one of the key stars of the film. This is a strange marketing decision that creates false expectations. Instead of a full-fledged character, we see an episodic hero who does not play any role in the plot.
As a result, the film’s ensemble cast looks as if everyone is acting in their own style: Kolokolnikov portrays a stern statue, Yenakaeva trains for a role in a school play, and Vorobyov enjoys clowning. And no director’s plan could combine this into a single whole.
There’s nothing to even say about the other characters. It’s just a ridiculous crowd of extras in ridiculous costumes.
The dresser opened the wrong closet
Post-apocalypse is a genre that in itself promises an exciting atmosphere. Destroyed cities, harsh landscapes, a battle for survival, where every resource is worth its weight in gold. But in The Last Ronin, this atmosphere, instead of immersion, raises more questions.
The heroes’ leather coat and jacket is a separate element of the film’s “atmosphere,” which raises more questions than admiration. Instead of the shabby clothes that you might expect in a nuclear wasteland, the heroes sport completely clean outfits. These cloaks bear no traces of sandstorms, blood, or even minor damage, which are inevitable in a world where danger lurks at every turn.
The main character’s costume, for example, looks like it was specially ordered from a luxury designer for a photo shoot, and not for survival in the wasteland. Where did he find these clothes? Why is she in this state? And most importantly – why? Instead of emphasizing severity and practicality, such outfits make the characters look like participants in a fashion show who accidentally found themselves in a post-apocalypse.
The raider costumes also make me smile. Instead of practical survival clothing, they wear something like “the best post-nuclear fair cosplay outfits.” These suits scream “look, we’re stylish” more than “we’re rugged survivalists.” As a result, even the most brutal bandits look more like participants in a role-playing festival than like a real threat.
This strange emphasis on cleanliness and clothing style completely ruins the immersion. Instead of dirt, sweat, and tattered fabrics that could enhance the realism of the world, we see costumes that look like out-of-place theatrical props.
Dead world without answers
The post-apocalyptic world of the film looks more like a cheap set than a full-fledged universe. The locations are monotonous, there are no details, and the logic of survival is not just lame – it has completely gone on vacation. Where do people live? What do they eat? How do they survive? These questions remain unanswered because the director and screenwriter simply did not bother to work through them.
The main element of the post-apocalypse is the world itself, which must be alive, albeit destroyed. In The Last Ronin, the wasteland looks monotonous and lifeless. No remnants of civilization, except for a couple of rusty cars, no details that would tell the history of this world. This could have been an epic backdrop for drama, but instead it feels like a random location chosen to save budget.
As a result, the atmosphere of the film creates a feeling of artificiality instead of immersion. Clean suits, ridiculous raiders, lack of logic in the structure of the world – all this destroys the illusion of the post-apocalypse. It seems that the heroes are simply strolling through the scenery, which they forgot to enliven with details and common sense.
We skip even on torrents
The Last Ronin is a film that tries to seem bigger than it is.
You can feel the ambition in him to create something large-scale, epic and truly significant for Russian cinema. But, unfortunately, all these ambitions were drowned in a sea of platitudes, borrowings and frankly weak implementation.
The ensemble cast doesn’t save the film, but rather adds to its problems. Yuri Kolokolnikov does everything he can, but even his efforts are not enough to breathe life into his character. Diana Enakaeva is torn between underacting and overacting, and the villain played by Daniil Vorobyov is so grimacing that he turns the drawn-out final scenes into a parody. Literally everyone is waiting for his death, from the audience to other characters in the frame.
But the biggest problem of the film is its absolute derivativeness. This is not a story, but a kaleidoscope of borrowings cobbled together into an illogical and incoherent plot. There are references to everything here and it looks strange and ridiculous. What is all this for? This is a film without soul, style or ideas, which brings together everything that can be found in the genre. Instead of a nod to the classics, the viewer received only a parody of everything at once.
All this is similar to the final exam, where the student chose the topic “post-apocalypse”, but instead of an original idea, he simply glued together a cut-out from someone else’s work. Locations, heroes, weapons – everything looks like an abstract hastily put together on the last night, without understanding how to turn it into a coherent work.
If you want to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of a post-nuclear wasteland, it is better to watch Mad Max or play Fallout. “The Last Ronin” is a waste of time, which even in the trash genre can hardly be called worthwhile.
Source: www.iphones.ru
