Valentine - The Dark Avenger

Spectacular action movie with a beautiful female action lead. If this were a US movie, it would be highly rated. Story is simple and copied from Kick-Ass. Cool bad guys like in Batman movies.

On a budget but still entertaining with good effort by the whole cast

I hadn't even heard about the 2017 Indonesian superhero movie titled "Valentine" before now in 2021, when I had the chance to sit down to watch it. In fact, as I sat down to watch it, I didn't even know it was an Indonesian movie.

Let me just be the first to say that I was more than genuinely entertained and surprised with the movie from writers Sarjono Sutrisno, Beby Hasibuan and Aswin Siregar. This was actually a rather impressive movie and a very enjoyable movie to watch.

The storyline told in "Valentine" was a good and entertaining one, though it felt like an Indonesian version of "The Phantom" somehow. But it worked out quite well, because the story was one that picks you up and immerse you into the action. I was genuinely entertained by this movie from start to end.

As for the acting in the movie, well I was impressed, and I found that the actors and actresses were doing good jobs. I wasn't familiar with the cast here, as I haven't seen all that many Indonesian movies. But I was more than genuinely impressed with lead actress Estelle Linden, she really can fight. And I really hope that she will put out more action and martial arts movies in the future.

It should also be said that the costume department working on the movie really did a phenomenal job. I liked the costumes quite a bit, especially on the entourage that followed Shadow (the villain) around; they really had colorful and impressive outfits.

Unfortunately I had the misfortune to sit down to watch a version that was fully dubbed into English. It was atrocious to listen to, and I loathe dubbed movies. But still, the storyline and the action in "Valentine" was so entertaining that I bit the apple and endured the horrible dubbing.

"Valentine" is a movie that I can strongly recommend that you sit down to watch. While it is not a super-hero movie per se, as Valentine has no super powers, it is a hero movie nonetheless. My rating of "Valentine" is a well-deserved seven out of ten stars.

This is a really low budget movie. Like really really low, so don't expect groundbreaking cgi. There is a car chase scene that I found laughable thanks to the low quality cgi. I wasn't invested in the story, at one point they completely let go of one of the storylines and I just had to go with it. I really liked the main villain, until they ruined it for me by showing us who was behind the mask. Like, COME ON you can't be serious. The other villains did not even speak once in the whole movie so they were just like minions. One thing that I enjoyed during all movie was the fighting scenes, good job on that one.

As comic book films go, this was "okay", but not impressive. So-so super hero flick about a female Batman-type vigilante. Good story but unbelievable because virtually no weapons were used by criminals-- all marial arts fight scenes. Valentine's costume looked like something out of amateur cosplay. She goes into heavy physical battle with virtually no body armor to speak of... and not a scratch during the entire film.

The storyline is cliche but decent and the characters aren't bad. But that costume along with the "I just love martial arts!" fight scenes made this a wiener of a film. That, followed by two incomprehensible "credit flicks" made this a somewhat underwhelming effort. Better than Batman & Robin, and there have been worse superhero films, but this could have used better costuming, better choreography, and a whole lot more "What does she do if someone pulls out a shotgun or a sword?" Seriously, the loon didn't even carry a taser. That's just goofy, unrealistic writing.

And while I did like the main actress... about 30 to 40 more pounds of muscle would have made her character more believable. Why do they always portray female "fighter type" super heroes like frail supermodels? C'mon industry, get some wits.