Grom Know on I Will Trust and Believe You

On May five, 2021, the Russian action moving picture 'Major Grom: Plague Doctor', based on the comic book of the same name from Bubble Comics, was released on Netflix. Is this the first truly watchable Russian superhero movie?

1. CGI and dynamic action scenes

Oleg Trofim/Bubble Studios,2021

An ordinary rainy 24-hour interval. A constabulary officer is running down a street in Petrograd dressed in a vintage jacket and brown beret. His proper name is Igor Grom, the main character in the moving picture. In 1 bound, he leaps into a truck full of robbers in hockey masks, tries to terminate them, but gets blasted in the breast with gunfire. Cut to a funeral scene and it looks as if the movie is over before it's started. That would be original, merely not box office-savvy. Suffice it to say that all is not as information technology seems.

Oleg Trofim/Chimera Studios,2021

The whole flick is filled with action scenes like these — exhilarating, gritty, sometimes funny. 'Major Grom' (whose surname means "thunder" in Russian) stops criminals either behind the bike of a garbage truck or with the help of a glass and his fists. The fight scenes are not only blood-pumping, just integral to the plot.

The antagonist, the Plague Doctor, and his acolytes spray gunfire all over the place — undesirables get dispatched with brusque shrift, cars burn and explode during street protests. Caricatured it may exist, but it is edge-of-the-seat stuff, as befitting a real superhero movie.

ii. Three-dimensional characters and storyline

Oleg Trofim/Bubble Studios,2021

'Major Grom' is not your standard Hollywood superhero who acquires incredible powers through a freak blow or fancy gadgets. He is just quick, nimble and smart. Grom'southward "superpower" if whatsoever is his never-say-die Russian mindset that gets him out of endless scrapes and sticky situations.

Igor is a loner, a kind of Dr. House in police uniform. At piece of work, the only people he gets on with are his rookie partner and his boss Prokopenko, who forgives all kinds of bailiwick violations, since Grom is the only one actually able to catch criminals.

A special mention should exist made of the villain, whose true identity is shrouded in mystery. On the one hand, the picture presents the main source of evil every bit the corrupt oligarchs who run the city. Their children run over people at pedestrian crossings without fifty-fifty braking, on the city outskirts local residents asphyxiate on the toxic smell of commercial landfills and some are left completely homeless, due to the actions of greedy bankers.

On the other side stands the main antagonist, the Plague Doctor. He seems to be fighting injustice, declaring war on the corrupt. But he does it in the most brutal manner — killing them without due procedure, their families oftentimes getting caught in the crossfire. Despite (or considering of) his methods, the Plague Doctor shortly becomes a folk hero.

Director Oleg Trofim, in an interview with online portal DTF, claimed that the picture is not politically motivated. All the same, the attentive viewer volition notice parallels between the Plague Doctor and oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who also makes active use of social media to interact with his supporters (this allusion is past no means in Navalny's favor). Another hero in the movie is the talented programmer Sergei Razumovsky, creator of the anonymous social network Vmeste, the main digital platform used by the Plague Doc. This is a clear nod to Pavel Durov, founder of the social network Vkontakte and the messenger app Telegram, who, incidentally, also began his career in St. petersburg.

That said, the movie can still be enjoyed at surface level, without an understanding of Russian politics, because, in essence, it is an archetypal tale of revenge born of a sense of fairness and the permissible boundaries of popular justice.

3. The Gotham-like St. petersburg

Oleg Trofim/Chimera Studios,2021

Unlike the recently released 'Silver Skates', as well bachelor on Netflix, 'Major Grom'south St. Petersburg is bleak and gloomy, more than reminiscent of a rainy Gotham City.

But that is, after all, closer to reality — it does indeed rain constantly in Russia'south northern capital. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, the metropolis's iconic landmarks are shown in all their celebrity: nosotros encounter them during the chases through Palace and Sennaya squares, during the dialogues on the Neva embankment and from the rooftops, where the characters sit down eating shawarma, the near popular fast food in the urban center.

The night views of Petrograd are especially impressive — panoramas of the night-time streets with an illuminated St. Isaac's Cathedral, drawbridges and confined filled with people (yes, no lockdown). Saint petersburg's Buddha Bar is depicted in the movie as a luxury casino and plays host to one of the biggest fight scenes. Every viewer will definitely desire to visit after seeing that.

4. Original soundtrack

Oleg Trofim/Bubble Studios,2021

Bad news for viewers who don't know Russian: all songs in the picture show are by Russian performers in their native language. The good news is that the melodies are so unusual and haunting that non knowing the language is no bulwark.

The soundtrack is a wild mix of indie bands performing Russian rap, hip-hop, popular, alternative stone, electronica and fifty-fifty folk. Amid them are an old hit of the rock group Aquarium, a song from the Soviet cartoon Babe Raccoon and a slowed-down embrace of Viktor Tsoi'south usually thumping song 'Changes' plays over the opening credits.

"We were looking for unknowns from the underground scene with an authentic and professional audio, but not nevertheless vulgarized by their ain popularity. Information technology was important to find true Leningrad music and uncover bold new talent in the process, as happened with the movie Brat 2 [Brother two]," said director Oleg Trofimov well-nigh the soundtrack pick process.

5. Bondiana with social connotations

Oleg Trofim/Bubble Studios,2021

Right from the get-go, 'Major Grom' seems vaguely imitative of the Bond films: an ordinary cop instead of a hush-hush agent; the bonny, cheeky announcer Yulia Pchelkina as the love interest; the ironic Colonel Fyodor Prokopenko in the place of M, head of Great britain's MI5 intelligence bureau. Even the opening credits smack of Skyfall.

In the final assay, 'Major Grom' is rescued from the "average action flick" category thank you to its Russian flavor, well-timed and non-vulgar humor and complex, morally grey characters, who cannot exist boxed every bit skillful or evil.

If using whatever of Russian federation Beyond's content, partly or in total, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/arts/333788-5-reasons-to-watch-major-grom