Atenea

THERE IS NOTHING SMALL ABOUT ATHENA. THEREFORE, THE ONLY WAY TO DO JUSTICE TO THIS MOVIE IS TO WRITE A REVIEW IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

IT STARTS WITH AN ATTACK ON ALL SENSES IN A SHOT THAT SEEMS TO STRETCH THROUGH THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

THE MASS SCENES OF UNREST GIVE YOU AN INSIGHT HOW A SIEGE IN ANCIENT TIMES HAVE LOOKED LIKE. AND WITH DIFFERENT COSTUMES AND WEAPONS, YOU MIGHT HAVE HAD A FEELING OF PARTICIPATING IN A BATTLE BACK THEN.

AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT ADRENALINE IS EVERYTHING ATHENA HAS TO OFFER, THE AUTHORS OPTED FOR EMOTIONS AND REACHED THE HEIGHTS OF AN ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY. THE CHARACTERS HAD TO MAKE DIFICULT CHOICES, TO SAY THE LEAST.

THE RUNNING TIME OF ROUGHLY 90 MINUTES WAS THE RIGHT DECISION. EVERYTHING BEYOND WOULD BE PERSIFLAGE.

IF I NEED TO SUM THIS ALL UP, I'D SAY ATHENA WAS MORE OF AN EXPERIENCE THAN MERELY A FILM. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME A MOVIE I STREAMED DIDN'T MAKE ME REACH FOR THE FAST-FORWARD BUTTON. IT FELT AS IF SOMEONE WAS PUNCHING ME IN THE STOMACH DURING THE WHOLE DURATION OF THE MOVIE.

IF WE ARE TO TAKE A LIGHTER APPROACH TO THIS REVIEW, ATHENA WOULD BE HATE (1995) MEETS TROY (2004).

IN TERMS OF IMDB STARTS ATHENA IS AT THE TOP OF THE RANGE.

...too much of everything. It makes the impression that the director and the d.o.p. Were working for their reel and their reputation instead for the film. The long shots, the fire works, the steadycam shots, the drone shots...everything is kinda used all the time and frequently without serving any purpose except of being there and looking cool. And thats the biggest problem of the film. It feels like the wet dream of any music video director, but not like an generic and authentic film. It lacks of bravery to look ugly...sure it looks good if a dude on a horse is riding through the smoke weaving the french flag in the middle of a revolt...but does it really need to be there?

Athena is one of the most surprising films I've seen this year and I think it's safe to say I ended up loving it, I didn't know what to expect going in and this film wonderfully surprised me, while it's basically a retelling of the year between George Floyd's death and the trial in 2021, but it managed to put a few twists and turns in also.

It's a visual spectacle with a brilliant atmosphere, beautiful cinematography and truly bone cracking fight scenes, our main character, Abdel, is brilliant, Dali Benssalah put on a truly raw and powerful performance perfectly portraying the pain we all felt during the time of violence and riots.

The musical score is absolutely wonderful, wow, it's some of the best I've heard since Causeway, Athena manages to give us a driven character story while also having a somewhat breathtaking ending to pull it all together, and I'm proud to say I loved it.

Athena gets an A-

I was expecting a lot more from this film because I am long time admirer of both Romain Gavras work in music clips, and acting of Dali Benssalah. First of al good things: visuals!!! Piece of art, starting from first scene all the way to the very last moments of film.

Secondly very good acting by leading roles, although unrealistic emotions at some moments ruined truly epic performance. You could definitely see a lot of talent here, but really bad script, so many plot holes, mistakes and goofs. Shortly speaking film started with somewhat around 8.5 and then steadily going down. No deeper meaning or cliffhangers definitely didn't save overall poor film. 6 is being very generous and only because pros I've mentioned was at high level.

ATHENA is an urban war movie with a political touch by Romain Gavras who follows the lead of his father -the Greek well known director and screenplay writer- Costa Gavras. The film is all about how the lives of 3 French siblings with an Algerian descent immerse into chaos after the death of the fourth younger brother under unclear circumstances. The pain of the loss becomes rage and then... BOOM! Everything explodes at ATHENA building complex in Paris and the social strife begins. Although the film has all the necessary elements to be mentioned as a contemporary Greek tragedy and besides the insane long take opening scene it also has a lot of weak spots and blurry motives.