Le Gardien des mondes

As a big fan of Lukjanenko, the author of the book and the book itself, I so wished the movie would be any good. But unfortunately it isn't. And I am very sad to give this review

First of all I would like to thank the author for a great story. For some reasons this book puts me in a special mental state, so I have listened to an audio version of it more than enough to know the story by heart.

Now about the movie. My major complain goes to the screenwriter. Almost all story lines and characters, including the main ones were changed so heavily, that the whole thing stopped to make any sense after the first 30 minutes of the movie. I probably said "whaat the hell??" 100 times watching the movie. Somehow, to my regret, bad screenwriting became an epidemic in the russian movie industry. It's like they think that if they add some visual effects to the movie, they are justified to make a sloppy work on the story, which is what a good movie is actually always about. Common guys, that is just a lazy thinking!

Ok, you might say that I am biased by the book and it's always difficult to convert a book to a movie. So what if you haven't read the book? To that I would say - it will be even worse to watch, because you will just fail to understand what the hell is going on. Characters suddenly start talking about things and calling names you've never heard before. In my opinion you will not understand motivations and the logic, so you will be left to sit and wonder who is doing what and why.

My advise - skip the movie, read or listen the book.

I know nothing of the books, but shouldn't need to if the script was tight. It was not.

The main character's bizarre obsession with one woman and seemingly effortless adjustment to his new surreal job and surroundings had me rewinding several times, certain I'd missed something that explained what was happening.

I had not.

Also, none of the frequent Russian text displayed on the screen is translated, which is super annoying.

Don't let a few interesting visuals in the previews fool you. The rest are embarrassingly bad.

Film without the slightest sense, poorly written and with an avalanche of both logical and plot holes. In general the film opens very well giving you a very good introduction that makes you empathize with the protagonist and makes you enter completely into the story, but after the beginning the film begins to decline in quality, meaning and continuity as if they had lost the desire to make the film, and in the end you wonder how it could have happened to this film to degenerate in this way.

...as intention. Because , it has beautiful premises, an interesting story and a lot of CGI effects. And a nice cast. But, scene by scene, it becomes a montagne russe. From the high level to the down. Once. And again. The best part- the resurrection of the memories about fairy tales. Including Russian . The worlds, the order keeper, the fundamental change of life - a fear of each from us- are good points . But the problem becomes with the wrong use of obsessive love story. Sure, Dante and Beatrice or, maybe,"What Dreams may Come". But the entire architecture of film is brocked. Sure, a seductive idea with high potential. But not enough for be credible. And real seductive.

I like the story-

Kirill (Nikita Volkov) returns home after a work celebration to find someone else living in his apartment. Soon he finds that no one remembers him- Not even the government! He discovers he has been chosen to be a customs agent, a person who can open doors to other worlds.

This movie feels like a rough draft. There was so much touched upon and and crammed into this movie. It would have done well to expand some parts of the storyline. The romance between Kirill and Anna had no depth or resolution. Although there were a few touching moments they weren't long enough to let you care.

Since this was an English dubbed film I must say the voice actors were mediocre. There was a part in the beginning where an actor is speaking and you only hear Kirill reply. Emotion is not always relayed and it takes away from the actors' intention.

There were a couple of neat little action scenes, some special effects and glimpses of other worlds. Scenes with Kirill and Kotya seemed natural.

This has at least inspired me to find the books and have a read.