Athena

Every aspect is high quality. Put any scene in a vacuum & it's incredible. The issue is that it's the same thing every scene. Minimal plot & character development. Powerful performance & messages but it feels numbingly repetitive.

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. Every aspect is high quality. Put any scene in a vacuum & it's incredible. The issue is that it's the same thing every scene. Minimal plot & character development. Powerful performance & messages but it feels numbingly repetitive.

. .

. Every aspect is high quality. Put any scene in a vacuum & it's incredible. The issue is that it's the same thing every scene. Minimal plot & character development. Powerful performance & messages but it feels numbingly repetitive.

...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 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.

Powerful, and brilliantly full of cinematic visual energy.

"Athena" succeeds from the first 10 mins continuous shot in the opening scene to soak you in with its fast pace, and ongoing tension that pushes you on the edge and doesn't fail to blow your mind with its climactic chaotic beauty and changing emotions.

Simple story executed big with great performances. I would've loved to see a bit more depth in the story, It would've strengthened the premise and given it further narrative depth than the stylistic approach, which I didn't mind much.

The cinematography is the strongest element of the movie, the visuals were striking!! It's highly impressive on the technical level, the camera work delivered such an incredible dynamic immersion that transformed you into the action.

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.