Starring a deadpan Mads Mikkelsen and based on Victor Santos graphic novels of the same name, Polar is a bonkers, uber-violent assassin flick. Vanessa Hudgens as Camille:Duncan's central affiliate is a young woman named Camille. A hell of a way to kick off 2019 Netflix, bravo. What is Camille running from? InPolar, when the infamous assassin Duncan Vizla/The Black Kaiser (Mads Mikkelsen) retires, the organization he's affiliated with hunts him down asa resultof a shady loophole in his soon-to-be-expired contract. Blut's remaining guards quit when they see Duncan approaching Blut's palace, refusing to invoke. Then, after he kills Karl, Vizla uses Facundo's sniper rifle to kill the rest of the A-Team inside his cabin. Hes also no stranger to the comic-book world, having played Kaecilius in Dr. In the pile of dirt, thats the one sprout worth mentioning. Camille and Vizla deciding to track down the people who ordered the massacre of her family. Danny Salemme is a Lead Editor and Features Writer at Screen Rant. We see an ageing guy sunbathing by the pool, while a skimpily dressed woman named Sindy (Ruby O.

Prime example is the character of Sindy (Ruby O Fee), who seduces men into prolonged sex acts so her team can simultaneously snipe their target from afar and flank them on the ground. After the shootout in the warehouse, Vivian is left seriously wounded, but alive. It is directed by Jonas kerlund and stars Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick and Matt Lucas. This hitman isnt remotely interesting neither his Im so lonely in my snow-covered cabin state, nor when hes spraying bullets and scragging necks. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Polar. When she finally confronts him over this in the end, he is fully willing to let her kill him for this. Seconds before, the Costa Rican actress Ruby O. Acting-wise, this entire ensemble is absolutely atrocious. However, after his employers kill one of their other recently retired assassins, they come for him. And that gratuitously violent half of the movie never really meshes well with the other half, which focuses on Duncan trying to settle into a normal life. She knows the Telephone choreography but please dont ask her to do it. In Florida, a man slaps around Sindy (Ruby O. Mads Mikkelsen in Polar. Polar Before They were famous 2019.Polar is a 2019 neo-noir action film based on the webcomic series of the same name. Now that Mr. Blut is trying to sell Damocles, hes trying to get rid of Duncan, and he severely underestimates the mans smarts: He sends in a team led by his pleather catsuit-wearing girlfriend Hilde (Fei Ren, copying the look from the video game Mirrors Edge), who try four of Duncans properties before finding him living off the grid in Montana. Thanks for watching.Music from https://freetouse.comTrack: Ikson - New Day Hopefully he was at least paid handsomely to star in it. Of course! Hes turning 50 in two weeks, and looking forward to retirement. Jonas kerlunds latest film is sure to thrill, amuse, disgust, andforgive mepolarize viewers who decide to stay home and see whats on Netflix. Vivian brings two dozen mooks armed with automatic rifles to take down Vizla, while the Black Kaiser has set up remote-controlled machine guns on the upper level of the warehouse. If this all sounds good to you, well, its just a click away. Polar is available on Netflix from 25 January, IO review post-cataclysmic Netflix adventure aims high, lands in middle, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Danny studied Film at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL, spent some time working in production on both the east and west coasts before refocusing his career toward entertainment journalism, studied Improv and Sketch Comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Manhattan, and is an independent filmmaker. But just as he is settling into retirement and getting acquainted with a young attractive neighbor (Hudgens), his former employer decides to mark him as a liability. She fires the gun in the air instead, leaving an uncertain future for both of them. Find her on Instagram and Twitter@sydurbanek. And its seemingly in conversation with some of those genres most iconic characters: John Wick receives a pretty frank nod, and, from there, Mikkelsen emulates everyone from Mikael Blomkvist, to Travis Bickle, to Kindergarten Cops John Kimble. It feels like Polars climax until you realize that theres a whole hour left.

One of them tries to shoot Duncan with a sniper rifle but fails because Duncan suddenly moves and the bullet hits Sindy instead. As Polars Duncan Vizla, Mikkelsen is grittier than weve seen him in some time. (In fact, partially due to its deadmau5-produced score, the film sometimes feels like a two-hour music video.) Based in Toronto, she writes about film, music videos, and chronic illness. (No matter, though, since this plotline is never pursued.) Learn how your comment data is processed. The result is an assassin movie thats also somehow a neo-noir, a revenge film, an action thriller, and even a family drama. Though Mikkelsen isnt exactly known for his comedic chops, he certainly has them and gets to put them to decent use here. Sindy (Ruby O. Its the kind of movie Christopher Lambert might have made as a straight-to-video actioner in the 90s. Change). Fee leading the squad. Its garbage! That is the experience of Polar, but worse, because youre watching this at home, and you locked yourself into this choice, and you think, Well, maybe it will get better, or, Well, maybe Mads Mikkelsen will do full frontal, but the movie DOES NOT and he DOES NOT. The last remaining goons Blut has with him all make a run for it after Vizla butchers dozens of men and drives up to the mansion. He visits a local school, passes around a knife, and answers the childrens questions about his international travel in ways that are low-key ignorant about those countries. Mr. Bluts slapstick mode is a false ode to the British series Utopia (played by Matt Lucas from Little Britain). Winnick plays Lagertha in the History Channel seriesVikings, and she also starred inThe Dark Toweras Jake's mom Laurie. What DCEU Movie Will Henry Cavill's Superman Return In? Do they stare off into the wilderness together at the end of the film, in a way that makes me wonder, Oh god, did they consider making a Polar 2 about Duncan training Camille for revenge? The films first big showpiece is a sex scene-turned-fight scene in which Mikkelsen performs totally naked. The central crux ofPolarrevolves around retired assassins being offed by their formeremployers. Faced by an axe-wielding Duncan, Blut raises his sword and pistol in a pathetic, Blut decides it's best to save himself some cash and increase the apparent profit of Damocles so the buy-out will have a better chance of happening by not paying his employees that are about to retire and considering that they are assassins, he decides. As it turns out, the charity was for Camille, whose family was murdered by Duncan during one of his hits. Maybe they are trying to keep physical media alive after all (latest earnings report shows 2.7 million people still have DVD-by-mail plans). Polar is a film adaptation of the action noir comics series of the same name. (Instead of worrying about paydays, Blut should reconsider the efficiency of his prime talent, as sending five assassins on this journey seems like a ridiculous waste of resources.) (LogOut/ Fei Renas Hilde:Ren has starred in small roles in shows likeLuciferandSupernatural. Vizla doesn't finish her off and just walks away. Likewise the Mexican hitman in Belarus; this means his guard is down when Vizla turns up early. Duncan Vizla (Mikkelsen) was the world's most deadly assassin, being known in the trade as the Black Kaiser, until he retired to a quiet life in the countryside. What follows is a bloodshed, provoked by a team of unlikely Rambo badasses, with the sequence ending on a sad boner of the murdered man. One of them even tells him where Blut is on the way out. He gets a dog, and Im sorry to say, that he has a nightmare and shoots and kills the dog. Michael Green decided to spend his retirement doing lines of coke and having sex with prostitutes whose names he can't even remember. Subscribe to my newsletter and stay tuned for more cool stuff. Polar is the latest entry to this sparsely populated subgenre but belongs definitively at the bottom of any roundup list. He ends up being dispatched by Duncan while in the middle of sniping, who proceeds to show the rest of the A-Team that he is an even colder sniper. Yes, and its fine. The fact that she only takes pictures of predators doesnt pique any interest in Duncan (although it screams to viewers, HUH I GUESS SHE IS HIDING SOMETHING WHY IS SHE OBSESSED WITH KILLERS), who instead seems to warm to her, enough so that the assassins notice, kidnap her, and pump her full of heroin as a way to punish Duncan. Other than that, skip it for your own mental health. I love the man and his mustache and how rakishly good he looks with an eyepatch, but not enough to recommend Polar. This wouldnt be much of a problem except that Camilles a central character and the only one whos really given a backstory. Vivian dismissively refers to it as a. Blut has an inner city mansion that he uses as headquarters and torture chamber. Here's who they are and where you've seen them before. Even if Mads inherent charm evokes a percentile of likability, Akerlund and screenwriter Jayson Rothwell always make sure to twist those moments around. Fittingly, Mikkelsen has made three music-video appearances in his acting career; the most famous being his cameo as The Bitch in Rihannas Bitch Better Have My Money (his words, not mine). It is rude and it is bad. Its the kind of movie that features a gruesome torture sequence that implicitly evokes Braveheart, then proceeds to play bagpipes and have a character tell an apocryphal story about William Wallace. In the center of this razzmatazz is Mads Mikkelsen, who is given a role that almost entirely covers his natural bravado and charisma. When he's not sending celebratory GIFs to Screen Rant's crack writing team, Danny's writing and producing short films and rewatching Bob's Burgers on a perpetual loop. If this all sounds convoluted, thats because it is. As we meet Duncan, hes receiving his annual physical. Somewhere in this mess, theres also Disneys starlet Vanessa Hudgens. Style certainly trumps substance here, but it doesnt seem like that was much of an accident. Fee flashes her butt in what seems to be a classic frame ripped out of every modern rap music video. Unbeknownst to his mother, he spent his youth watching bargain bin horror movies at his babysitter's house. Fee), the only of Mr. Bluts cronies who doesnt have any weapons skills; shes instead used exclusively as sexual bait. Arguably, the latter should be exciting for Polar (2019) is an action blockbuster on paper. Porter appears to be a decrepit old man whose glory days as a, Despite Mr. Blut proclaiming that he's "gonna fuck him up", this is how the final confrontation between him and Duncan goes. The only reason Alexei survived was because he wasn't there, as he'd left earlier to implement their Plan B. But there are secrets and double-crosses and betrayals that come as baggage for this final job, and Duncans retirement doesnt seem so secure anymore. Every scene with the assassins is edgier than the last, and the movie really lays it on thick instead of developing its characters or adding any kind of depth to its plot: Duncan uses a nail gun on a mans genitals. When Blut rings the man guarding Camille so he can use her as a hostage, the guard outright tells Blut that he's on his own. It is directed by Jonas kerlund and written by Jayson Rothwell. Vivian ignores it and is gunned down by the remote-controlled machine guns on the upper level. For the most part, their relationship is a weirdly uncomfortable romance, which has nothing to do with the hunt that consumes half of Akerlunds Polar (2019). They follow Duncans tracks and kill a number of people on the way. Hopefully he was at least paid handsomely to star in this. he story of a hitman facing an existential crisis and looking to retire has worked well for cinema, whether its played for pathos (The American), comedy (The Matador) or something in between (In Bruges). Mads Mikkelsen as Duncan Vizla: TheHannibalandDoctor Strangeactor plays a former assassinattempting to live a life of solitude in the middle of nowhere. (A particular Fuck you, this isnt John Wick message to viewers.) Fee) is an antagonist in the Netflix movie 'Polar' (2019). TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. None of Polars characters are particularly fleshed outDuncan includedbut a few of the films women have the added burden of existing mainly as sex objects. By the end credits I was just happy the whole thing was over. Helmed by pre-eminent music video director Jonas kerlund, Polar stars Mads Mikkelsen as Duncan or the Black Kaiser one of the worlds greatest hitmen. Polar is the latest entry to this sparsely populated subgenre but belongs definitively at the bottom of any roundup list. You may recognize Richings as Lor-Em fromMan of Steelorin his small role inHannibalalongside Mikkelsen. Think Tarantino-level gore with power drills driving into skulls and knives into eyeballs but without the social commentary. Your place to get the best movie reviews, music news and articles about your favorite TV shows. Hudgens has starred in everything fromHigh School MusicaltoSpring Breakers. In my opinion, this once scene captures the essence of Jonas Akerlunds Polar (2019). But is that enough to tolerate a movie in which all this other dumb shit happens? He holds a birthday party for himself and struggles when deciding what boxed cake mix to buy, and then we see him alone in his cabin, blowing up his own balloons while watching a cooking show. After he is shot several times more, his corpse is left displaying a prominent erection. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Do you see Madss butt in Polar? The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. She is a member of a hit squad that is hired to kill Duncan, the hero of the movie and a hitman about to retire. 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Cultural Hater - Quality Hating Since 2018. After Vivian endlessly pesters him about taking. The story of a hitman facing an existential crisis and looking to retire has worked well for cinema, whether its played for pathos (The American), comedy (The Matador) or something in between (In Bruges). But since they arent hired yet, here we are. It is fucked up! Nice review. As a matter of fact Mr. Blut intends to have all the retired assassins killed so he can appropriate their retirement funds. When Vizla arrives for a final showdown with Blut, Blut's bodyguards quit en masse, directing him to Blut and quickly getting out his way. the organization he's affiliated with hunts him down, Netflix Original TV Shows To Be Most Excited About In 2019, Todd McFarlane Offers Spawn Movie Update, Teases Big Announcement. But so is every element of the assassins storyline, which wants to be like John Wick but lacks any of the artistic design or visual storytelling or cinematographic verve to even remotely exist in that same universe. And he struggles to create a friendship with his next-door neighbor, Camille (Vanessa Hudgens). Ayisha Issa as Jazmin:Duncan's other affiliates include a mysterious, but faithful friend named Jazmin, whohelps Duncan out when he's in a considerable bind. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. But no! Mr. Blut's head goes flying out the window courtesy of Duncan. Theres the Belarusian prostitute whom Duncan visits whenever hes visiting Minsk, and for whom he seems to harbour feelings of affection. Mikkelsen who brings gravitas to upscale Hollywood blockbusters and art house films by Thomas Vinterberg and Susanne Bier belongs in an entirely different class of movie.