Diabolik - Ginko all'attacco!

I believe this installment was the least impressive of the three Diabolik films directed by the Manetti brothers. However, it is not without its merits. This narrative, drawn from the comic series, follows Diabolik as he pursues his treasure hunt, with the unwavering support of Eva Kant. The duo of skilled thieves has managed to strike a balance between their romantic and professional lives, although Eva encourages Diabolik to take a moment to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. In their final case before a much-needed break, Diabolik finds himself ensnared in a trap laid by Inspector Ginko. Faced with capture, the cunning thief opts to flee, leaving his beloved Eva behind.

The screenplay, crafted by Angela Giussani, Luciana Giussani, and Antonio Manetti, felt somewhat inconsistent, as it aimed to be more cinematic than a direct adaptation of the comics. While some viewers may appreciate this approach, it did not resonate with me. The cast remains unchanged: Giacomo Gianniotti as Diabolik, Miriam Leone as Eva Kant, Valerio Mastandrea as Inspector Ginko, and Monica Bellucci as Altea di Vallemberg-all deliver solid performances.

The music department did not meet expectations, but the cinematography adhered to high Italian standards, and the costumes and overall atmosphere effectively captured the essence of the 1960s. For fans of Diabolik, this film is worth a watch.

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Luca Marinelli played Diabolik in the 2021, but he had been replaced by Giacomo Gianniotti, whom had zero charisma and both looked and felt like a fish out of water on the screen.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.

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.

This film isn't satisfying. The image of the king of terror is a mirage. The character of Diabolik is difficult to represent in a film but the choice of this actor is a mistake bigger than the choice of the actor of the first film. Gianniotti is a gorgeous man but the beauty of this man isn't different from the sex appeal of Diabolik. His apparitions aren't unexpected and spectral but to tell the truth with this man the character of Diabolik results boring.

Valerio Mastrandrea as Ginko results better than Diabolik but worse than in the first film. The reason probably is the general plot of the story too long and with very few action scenes and for a Diabolik's story is a fatal error.

Monica Bellucci as Althea is an evanescent character, totally extraneous from the story.

The only character that is very well characterized is Eva Kant, interpreted by Miriam Leone, that is similar to Eva not only for physical elements but also for the personality.

The movie is overall very nice and enjoyable. Nice reconstruction of the Diabolik world. Nice costumes. Nice cartoonish scenography. Good overall acting for such kind of film. Just one big stain on it... and therefore a big question..... why to ruin an overall well made movie with the horrible acting of Monica Bellucci and why choose (or accept) to soft focus (or photoshop) her face (and only her) all around the movie when she appear in the scenes? I know... her presence will probably open additional markets to the movie... but I stil don't understand.... Maybe she paid to be in the film if soft focused?