Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Matt Lucas
Netflix Original – January 15, 2019
POLAR is the latest Netflix Original based on the Dark Horse
comic, “Polar: Came From The Cold” by Victor Santos. Duncan Vizia (Mikkelsen), an
aging assassin is preparing for retirement when his employer, Blut (Lucas)
begins a new policy to kill off all retiring killers to save on pension overhead.
He goes into hiding in a small town where he meets Camille (Hudgens). His former
coworkers track him down, kidnap Camille and otherwise generally piss him off. Hilarity
ensues… but not really.
I’ll start off by saying that I have no familiarity with
this film’s source material. I don’t read a lot of comics/graphic novels and this
one in particular would have never even been on my radar. I’m saying this in
order to clarify that my comparison between the motion picture and the material
it was adapted from is speculative in that respect. In short, all of the disparaging
things I’m about to say about the film, should in no way be misconstrued as
criticisms of what I can only imagine is a very successful comic.
But before I get to that, let’s pick out what I liked about
the film. This won’t take long. I was actually struck by how well the costumes
and set dressings mimic and inform the contrasting themes of our two sets of
characters. Our two main characters, Duncan and Camille are in hiding out in a
snow filled rural area of Montana. Everything about their lives seems to be
muted in unending Earth-tones to support this. Their clothes match the trees and
the wildlife and their unpainted log cabins add to the notion that these are
two people that found the perfect place to blend in. In contrast, their pursuers
are shown as a loud and boisterous group of assassins traveling around the
country on a blood-splattered murder spree. When the two worlds first collide,
it is clear that Duncan enjoys the home court advantage. Later, when he is forced
out of his comfort zone, the hue of the underworld immediately begins to come
down to his level, symbolizing his unyielding power. It was shot by Pär M.
Ekberg, a frequent collaborator of director, Åkerlund. They have worked on a
lot of music videos prior to this; most notably, they did one of the segments
of “Beyonce: Lemonade”. Their history of work in this medium shows.
This film reminds me of what a thirteen-year-old looks like
smoking a cigarette. He probably
looks really badass to other thirteen-year-olds.
But the rest of us are left to wonder: “Who’s in charge here?” This is the
unfortunate trap that a lot of live action films fall into when they are based
on comics. The same things that come across as “edgy” on the panels of this
medium translate very differently when adapted to the screen. This applies to
the editing style specifically. An action sequence in the comic will find it
necessary for multiple angles bouncing back and forth between perspectives in
order to inform the audience properly. The most literal translation of this to
a motion picture is the quick motif of jump cuts. This is both unnecessary and
visually assaultive. It serves to disorient rather than inform and it’s one of
my pet peeves. Interestingly though, this technique is usually utilized to mask
the fact that the stunts and the action set pieces were not very well choreographed.
This doesn’t appear to be the case here. It just seems to be a stylistic choice
that I don’t particularly appreciate.
The characters themselves are also quite awkward. My first
thought when we are introduced to the film’s main antagonist, Blut was: “Good
for Star-Wars Kid, glad he finally made it.”
The other way in which these types of “adaptations” always
rub me the wrong way is in the dialogue. It is much more acceptable to have
this brand of corniness read in a speech bubble hovering over the head of a
heightened cartoon character. But when actual people read these lines, it’s
clunky and distracting. I am constantly taken out of the story.
But alas, being taken out of the story of this film may not
have been the worst thing conceivable. There are some very obvious plot holes
here. Many of which stem from the organization’s financial plan. It just doesn’t
make much sense to me. And even if it did, I’m pretty sure that by the
forty-minute mark of the film, Duncan has killed enough of his coworkers to
have sufficiently made up for his own pension plan. Then later, a couple of Deus
Ex Machina type characters are introduced to move the story forward. One of
which is played by Richard Dreyfuss. He plays a previously retired assassin who
apparently was grandfathered in to the company’s older “don’t murder retirees”
policy?... I guess. Plot holes are the first thing to be forgiven in an
otherwise good movie. This is sadly not the case here.
To be clear, my thirteen-year-old self would have loved this
movie.
Emery’s Rating
1.5 out of 5 Stars
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