Diabolik - Ginko all'attacco!

No pun intended - I assume you have seen at least the first Diabolik movie (the predecessor for this that is and not the Mario Bava movie from the 60s). With that in mind, all major returning characters are being played by the same actors ... except the one that should matter the most: Diabolik ... it is a different actor altogether! For whatever reason (I did not check for the reason to be honest) ... I won't speculate.

What I can say is that this does not fair as good as the first movie. I can only hope that part 3 ramps things up a bit ... maybe with another Diabolik actor? I would not really be surprised. We get some new characters and actors added - mainly Monica Belucci - if you know her, you probably love or loved her at one time. She still has the charisma - but some people who criticize the movie say she is not close to the characters she is supposed to portray ... something I can't confirm or deny, since I have not read any of the comic books (graphic novels) ... not the best throwback ever (go to the original), but not the worst either.

When the first movie came out, I reviewed it as an interesting experiment with its evident flaws, but not worthy of the way too harsh comments from both critics and viewers.

With this 2nd one, I didn't know what to expect: for various reasons I couldn't watch it in theaters, and also I couldn't find it anywhere 'til now, but still I was very curious to see if I would've found the same results as the first one, if not better, or I would've come to agree with its detractors.

And now that I've finally seen it, I can say ... that there's still too much severity in judging movies that surely are not as good as they could've been, but that still manage to stay far away from total disaster

Starting with the good things, the technical side is always perfectly staged; and also, while in the first one I couldn't picture Mastandrea as Ginko, here he manages to give the role a bit more credibility, and Miriam Leone is still good as Eva, though less impactful and magnetic than before.

But alas, for the rest I cannot really say much more: the first movie tried to balance, not always perfectly, a more grounded approach with a more stylized one, directly referencing the 60s-70s Italian action movies ( the so called "poliziotteschi")

Here, they want to embrace a fully comic book-like atmosphere, and sadly it doesn't build up, resulting too alienating and difficult to accept, even for ones like me more used to movies like this (to quote another Italian title, "5 è il Numero Perfetto" managed to do this way better).

This is reflected especially in the dialogues and the acting of the supporting cast, way too set and "artificial", not to say too marked by dialects that just don't appeal to this kind of story.

Even newcomers like Alessio Lapice and especially Linda Caridi, an actress I grew to admire with each movie I saw her in, are heavily limited by this approach, resulting too much caricatured.

Special Mention to Ester Pantano which appears just at the beginning with a scene that wants to quote as I said a certain kind of movie, but in the end is just a waste of time and characters that could've used way more.

And of course, the most evident change: unfortunately my biggest fear became true, and Giacomo Gianniotti doesn't manage to be as charismatic as the King of Terror should be, nor as cold and lethal, despite many not agreeing with this either.

So, definitely a step back from the imperfect but intriguing and much better built first chapter, but despite anything still nice enough to watch.

What else to say? If the Italian film industry keeps finincing movies with taxpayer's money, they will never be as relevant as they were in the post WW2. Thieves call themselves moviemakers in that lan. Every film and television productionm becomess a money grabbing feast at vthe expenses of the taxpayers. They literally steal millions from the budget for personal gain or to cover for their companies debt. It's mayem, and it show in this miserable production.

As a real fan of Diabolik (I still hold the first 690 original set of comics books), I can say that I preferred the first movie, this second episodes ok has the same noir/comic slow action which is good, it brings a new actor as Diabolik (vote: 8) and I say he is perfect, cute guy like in the comic books and the eyes and the face reminds the original character, Miriam Leone again as a perfect Eva Kant (vote:8) .. but what is missing: ... the refuge is the same as in the 1st movie, too many shots are on Ginko (we have to digest actor Mastandrea with his Roman accent.. vote 5.... and Ginko was a cute man in the comics!), then a catastrofing acting by Monica Bellucci (vote 3 for me ... the actress is the anthitesis of the high class of Altea...). The overall rating is just as flat as a six.

I sat down to watch the 2022 Italian movie "Diabolik: Ginko All'attacco!" (aka "Diabolik: Ginko Attacks!") shortly after having sat down to watch the 2021 movie "Diabolik", which I rather enjoyed.

However, writers Antonio Manetti, Marco Manetti and Michelangelo La Neve dropped the ball here. This 2022 sequel was nowhere as entertaining or enjoyable as the 2021 movie. And that was rather disappointing, especially since "Diabolik: Ginko All'attacco!" hardly felt like it belonged as a sequel, since the Diabolik character wasn't really given all that much screen time.

Luca Marinelli played Diabolik in the 2021, but he had been replaced by Giacomo Gianniotti, whom had zero charisma and both looked and felt like a fish out of water on the screen. Does see Valerio Mastandrea and Miriam Leone return to reprise the roles of Ispettore Ginko and Eva Kant respectively.

There wasn't much of any burglary, thieving, heists, or much of anything going on in "Diabolik: Ginko All'attacco!", and that made sitting through 116 minutes of this movie from directors Antonio Manetti and Marco Manetti quite a tiresome ordeal. Yet, I managed to endure the movie, thinking that something was bound to liven up the movie as the clock was running out, but nothing happened.

"Diabolik: Ginko All'attacco!" was a slap to the face with a cold dead fish if you enjoyed the 2021 movie.

My rating of "Diabolik: Ginko All'attacco!" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.