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Sick Product of a Sick System

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

There is not many Russian sci-fi movies. I have watched "Paragraph 78" the first part, it wasn't good. I can't recall more Russian sci-fi films, although I have watched a lot of Russian films. I was even a little bit surprised when I have seen this film, because I thought Russians don't make such sci-fi films, it's an unusual genre for a Russian film. This one is good enough, but comparing it with American movie "The Island"(of the same genre), which I liked much more, it looks mediocre. So, don't expect something outstanding.The subject of relationship of women and superheroes isn't really anything new, we saw this many times in other movies, such as "Spiderman"(when someone other is mistaken for a hero or something, or the elaboration of some other sides of being a superhero). And so on.

I have no idea why I ended my lazy Saturday night by watching a relatively obscure and insignificant Russian superhero-movie because a) I don't particularly like this genre and b) I really don't like complete rip-offs of movies that I don't particularly like to begin with… And "Black Lightning" is, in fact, a blatant rip-off of "Spiderman" in the version of Sam Raimi. The resemblances are quite humorous, at least if they are all intentional and tongue-in-cheek (which I sincerely doubt). The Russian Peter Parker is named Dima, but he nevertheless remains a nerdy and pathetic college boy with a hopeless crush on his classmate Mary Jane (Nastya in Russian) and a terribly annoying and philosophizing goody-two-shoes mentor (his father instead of Uncle Ben). The evil Green Goblin on duty is – like Norman Osborn was – a wealthy industrialist and inspirational university tutor who wants to drill for diamonds underneath the city of Moscow. For this he needs the nano-catalyst, but the old brainiacs who invented this powerful fuel source built it into a traditionally old Volga vehicle. And guess who receives the Volga for his birthday? Peter, err I mean Dima, of course, and you know what they say in superhero land: with great power comes great responsibilities and blah blah blah… With his flying Volga, Dima metamorphoses into Black Lightning and rescues poor citizens in perilous situations while college buddy runs off with the girl. The Volga is a cool piece of scenery, but apart from that there's absolutely nothing to recommend here, except if you what to see how shameless imitations can get. Back in the 1980's, Italian directors were also making shameless and blatant imitations of Hollywood blockbusters, but at least their rip-offs were nastier, trashier, sleazier and crazier. This Russian imitation is only more boring!

This film is good. It takes a genre and reinvents it, not by a terrific plot, but by placing an American superhero adventure plot in an unfamiliar setting. Strange things happen. The film depicts a modern Russian society through the lens of a superhero plot American style. Thats damn clever! Thats whats makes this film interesting. If it was an American film, the weakness of the story would put you off. Here it makes you smile, and happy - happy to realise that globalisation is a good thing, that dreams and wishes are intact in bleakish Moscow, that love exists . Its a feel good film, with characters that are much more interesting than any Hollywood feel good film since forever. The conflict between capitalism and moral comes over with a credibility that you couldn't get in another setting. And the car scenes are cool. This is no case of serendipity, the very fact that this script was written, this film produced and directed, is clearly true vision, and bar the tacky scientists - this film deserves 10 out of 10.

I absolutely loved this movie! I'm Russian and speak Russian but was not born there, nor have I ever visited. It was an amazing experience for me to see modern Moscow rather than seeing it solely in old Russian classics. The main actors acted VERY well and were VERY good-looking. Some might argue that the plot is a copy of other superhero movies, BUT: every story will always be similar to another. What matters most is the execution. I loved the morals (gently incorporated into the plot) and the action was great. The person-to-person dialogue was very natural and often put a smile on my face. I hate gory movies so this was perfect for me. Definitely go watch it, it's a MUST see!By the way, I'm giving it a 9/10 instead of 10/10 due to some scientific inaccuracies.