Rendel

Down here at the End of the World, as they like to call it, one of the perks is getting transmissions from Cubavision, an FTA channel broadcast from 30°W, orbitting at 30,000 kilometers above the surface of the planet.

Sometimes this channel shows some pretty unusual stuff, as evidenced by RENDEL which showed up with a Euromix of tongues including some Hoch-Deutsch, a smattering of Russkie, suomi, some words of English with added subtitles in Spanish. Of course, the movie doesn't *come* with subtitles.

It was a movie that might hearken to the Bat-Guy but much, much darker and violent. It was highlighted by insane humour that could only be described as macabre. It was also very satisfying, in a way that eventually a house fire is extinguished.

Would I see this again? Sure. And there is a sequel in the works. I recommend it. Unless you're looking for a version of The Sound of Music.

Starts very slow with no major storyline Was expecting much better but do not waste your time

The trailer itself looked decent, but this movie is what I call a catastrophy. Absurd acting, awful screen writing, dialogs were full of cliches and the plot had more holes than there are black holes in space. I tried hard to find atleast something to grab on and say - yeah atleast they've had that, but no. It is just ridiculous. It's as if the scenario was written by some one who has absolutely no skill at all.

Finland may be famous from some things but one of those definitely is not action films. Only small independent groups seem to make those. Major studios sometimes make crime thrillers and they put violence in dramas too but pretty much never real action flicks.

So, when rating Rendel I feel like the sheer fact that it is a Finnish action film makes me want to give it more points, because I'm so glad someone in the country finally tries to make something cool.

Rendel as a character is quite cool indeed, at least the costume looks good. In essence he is a bit like The Punisher, a vigilante on a revenge mission. The only thing a bit weird to me was that he almost always goes fist fighting even if the enemies have machine guns. I get it his tactic is sneaking and attacking from behind but I just think his boxing method is a bit too unbelievable (because he doesn't have superpowers - or does he?). The hero's origin story is explained in flashbacks of some sort, but not every detail, so part of his "birth" is left a bit mysterious. I think that should have been explained a bit more thorough because it feels a bit random how he got his powers/abilities.

The movie has quite a dark tone which combines the loud punching sounds of action films with traditional Finnish style of crime films which are often rooted in a more realistic/cynical atmosphere...ruthless villains, lots of shouting and swearing.

Overall I'm left a bit conflicted. It's perhaps not quite as good as I hoped for but still step forward in Finnish genre cinema. In comparison to international action movies, well, I think it's average/decent. Recommended for fans of dark masked vigilantes...but not others.

Evidently if you take away Spawn's powers, and use a similar costume, and maintain the same gritty, dark, shadowy industrial gothic city setting, NO ONE WILL NOTICE SOMEHOW