I watched the new Russian action movie “The Last Ronin”. It was a big mistake

This week, the Russian film “The Last Ronin” was released, which for the first time 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.

Apparently, high-quality post-apocalyptic action with references to cult films and games awaits. This was supposed to be the American 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 see 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 has turned into a desert where you can find currency steel cartridges. Lone wanderer Ronin, armed with a katana and a pistol without bullets, agrees to accompany the teenager Maria to a mysterious wall.

While the plot may sound clichéd, the story makes for a compelling road movie set in a post-apocalyptic world, where a destroyed civilization becomes a restored backdrop for the characters’ personal stories. Obviously, the premise of the film “The Wizard” would be to show the audience the emotional journey of the characters, their development, complex moral choices and recommendations with trips and external demons.

Plus the concept of survival in an environment where cartridges have become currency, and clans of bandits, robots and cannibals justify the threat, opening up space for new 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 unpleasant 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 – either remain unrevealed or sound like dry retellings.
For example, Ronin teaches Maria about the workings of the world in the style of a lecturer, not 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 impressive visual efforts.

The journey itself, which could be the heart of the story, is virtually 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 by eliminating danger, the film simply added episodes for show. Unfortunately, instead of a road movie with a deep man, we got a bunch of random scenes that loosely tie into the overall plot.

Interaction Collection: A Patchwork 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 control the wasteland as they jump from one alien story to another, changing only the scenery.

The film is 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 snarky teenage girl go through danger, difficulties with cannibals, and gradually begin to resemble a dysfunctional family

• Fall out: the setting of a world where cartridges have become currency, and people are kept in clans, as if from a refuge

• Counter-Strike: a villain with a knight’s machine gun – looks like a misunderstanding, as if someone inserted a character from Dust2 with a “Golden Arabesque”

• “Road“: The scenes with the cannibals, which look truly creepy in the classic “Road”, are pushed forward here with their power. Instead, we see a poorly lit mass trampling through chaos. They wanted to shock, but it turned out ridiculous.

• “Game of Thrones“: a disgusting, funny blonde 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 a solid roundhouse kick.

• “Rippers“: A fight in a narrow corridor, filmed like a cheap copy, where a katana works better than any bullet

• “Screamers“: strange robots that are more reminiscent of 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 this chaotic set of references turned into a coherent work, which the debutant director could not cope with.

A dwarf operator is inconvenient

The camera work in “Trail Ronin” is a separate conversation – and, perhaps, a separate 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 if the operator could not stand the intense graphic shooting and decided to film the world as it is supported by small children and stray dogs.

Instead of adding dynamics or scope to a scene, the film almost completely eliminates the use of drones or panoramic shots. Forget about tall shots conveying 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 a special art form. The art of unpredictability. Yuri Kolokolnikov, who plays Ronina, is trying 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, the adult teenage girl Maria, gives viewers the exact opposite experience. She either underplays, turning completely without switching the observer, or overacts so much that you want to turn off the sound. Her screams, hysterics and pauses are not dramatic acting, but role-playing school theater. This is especially evident in key moments where the viewer should empathize with the heroine, but instead, shame for the character is shown.

And, of course, the main villain played by Daniila Vorobyov. His pathetic speeches, grotesque antics and ridiculous poses – this is more reminiscent of a comedy show hero than a villain.

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 seriously sticks up advertising posters, as if he is one of the main stars of the film. This is a strange marketing decision that creates false expectations. Instead of a real character, we see an episodic hero who plays no role in the plot.

As a result, the film’s ensemble of actors looks as if everyone is acting in their own style: Kolokolnikov paints a stern statue, Yenakaeva confidently plays a role in a school production, and Vorobyov enjoys clowning. And no director’s plan could know this in a single mind.

There’s nothing to even say about the other characters. It’s just a ridiculous mass 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 one might expect in a nuclear wasteland, the characters sport completely clean outfits. These cloaks do not suffer from sandstorms, blood, or minor injuries, which are inevitable in a world where danger lurks at every turn.

The main character’s costume, for example, looks like it was specially commissioned 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.

Raider costumes also invite a smile. Instead of practical clothes, some kind of survival gear, they wear something like “the best outfits for cosplay at a post-nuclear fair.” These suits scream “look, we’re stylish” more than “we’re rugged survivalists.” Ultimately, even the most brutal bandits look more like participants in a role-playing festival than an actual threat.

This strange emphasis on cleanliness and style of dress is completely destroyed by immersion. Instead of the dirt, sweat and tattered fabrics that could be a force in the world’s realism, we see costumes that look like out-of-place theatrical props.

Dead world without attacks

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 to survive? These questions remain unanswered because the director and screenwriter simply did not bother to work through them.

The main post of the element of the apocalypse is the world itself, which should 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 dramas, 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 mobile world – all this destroys the illusion of the post-apocalypse. The characters seem to simply stroll through a set that has forgotten to bring details and common sense to life.

We even run on torrents

The Last Ronin is a film that tries to seem bigger than it is.
He had an ambition to create something large-scale, epic and truly innovative for Russian America. But, unfortunately, all these ambitions were drowned in a sea of ​​platitudes, borrowings and frankly weak implementation.

The acting’s costume doesn’t save the film, but rather contributes to its problems. Yuri Kolokolnikov does everything he can, but even his ability is not enough to breathe life into his character. Diana Enakaeva is torn between underacting and overacting, and the villain played by Daniila Vorobyov is so grimacing that he turns the drawn-out final scenes into a parody. Literally everyone expects his death from watching 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 uniformly collects everything that can be found in the genre. Instead of a nod to the classic viewing, it turned out to be just a parody of everything at once.

All this looks like a final exam, where a student chose the topic “post-apopsis”, 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 overnight, 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 remake Mad Max or play Fallout. “The Last Ronin” is a waste of time, even in the trash genre it can hardly be called worthwhile.