This is a very slick-looking film with stylish lighting, effective action scenes, and fluid camera work.
While browsing for movies at Walmart, I came across a curious box cover. The Blu-ray art was very reminiscent of The Dark Knight’s cover art: A masked figure in black leather is looking down at the camera with flames behind him to his left. The back of the box read “From the mind of visionary writer/director Jesse Haaja comes the very first full-length superhero film from Finland.”
So, I was intrigued. Superhero films have become so commonplace in American cinema that I thought it would be interesting to see what a Finnish superhero film would be like. Would it just try to copy the American formula? Would it add something special to the mix?
The story is about an evil corporation named VALA that has started producing an untested vaccine. They’re driven by profits and are selling the drug to African countries with little regard to the side effects. (It was a bit difficult to tell exactly what the vaccine was supposed to do as the film is in Finnish with English subtitles. Unfortunately, documents and newspapers that are shown on camera are not translated, so it felt like some detail was literally lost in translation.) The corporation has in its employ some serious thugs who are prone to violence and murder if it helps to increase their bottom line.
Stepping up to stop the production of this vaccine – and the company’s unscrupulous methods – is a masked hero who calls himself Rendel. (The origin of the name is explained in the film, so I won’t give it away.) Rendel dons a mask/helmet hybrid, a black biker jacket, black pants and boots and begins beating the bad guys – sometimes to death – trying to get them to change their business model. Who he is and how he came to be is something that the film explains in due time.
One thing that immediately struck me about Rendel: Dark Vengeance, aside from it being a Finnish superhero film, is that it resembles superhero films of the late 1990s. It’s not massive in scale or attempting to be an epic. It’s about a hero who has one goal in mind and he will stop at nothing until that goal is achieved.
I can’t think of any superhero movie that I’ve ever seen before that didn’t include any noticeable CGI. It’s one man against many. No aliens or robots or supernatural elements. Just a good guy vs. bad guys in really intense physical combat. I’m sure there is CGI in the movie — even dramas these days have CGI for some reason — but any CGI in Rendel was done so for aesthetic purposes and not to turn this into a blockbuster-type epic.
Fans of martial arts movies should appreciate this film’s style. While it’s not as choreographed as some genre films are these days, most of the action is hand-to-hand fighting. It’s rather visceral as much of the combat is between very large, stocky men who like to repeatedly punch other men in the face. It’s not excessively gory but there is a lot of brutality that could shock those used to Marvel and DC’s usual sanitized brand of violence. Think more like The Punisher: War Zone or Logan.
Apparently, Finland does not produce large budget films as a rule. Rendel is a modest production but the smaller budget doesn’t mean that this movie looks cheap. Far from it. This is a very slick-looking film with stylish lighting, effective action scenes, and fluid camera work. It never exhibits that shaky-cam feel of cheaper all-digital productions.
The characters are surprisingly well written but the dialogue delivery falls flat. Some actors alternate between English and Finnish and the English delivery sometimes sounds like it was spoken phonetically. I can’t comment on the Finnish dialogue but the English subtitles occasionally don’t make a lot of sense. So you have to piece scenes together on your own. Thankfully, since the story is so simple, there’s little chance that you’ll find yourself confused.
I liked that Rendel’s motivation was much more focused than big-budget superheroes. He’s not trying to stomp out evil everywhere. He’s more like Daredevil in that he stays in his neighborhood and does what he can to stop the local bad guys.
Rendel, as a character, doesn’t have a lot of personality but the film does have a sense of humor. I’ll let you discover that part of the film on your own. It’s not hilarious but it does feature at least one laugh-out-loud moment and several well-earned giggles.
And, sure, there are some action movie clichés present – like the ever-popular “guy walking away from an explosion without reacting” shot – but, overall, Rendel overcomes its shortcomings by being fun and exciting without trying to overreach its grasp.
So, Finland’s first superhero movie is a winner in my eyes. I’d love to see a sequel as long as it keeps things as focused and powerful as the original.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
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