Diabolik: Ginko Attacks

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Luca Marinelli played Diabolik in the 2021, but he had been replaced by Giacomo Gianniotti, whom had zero charisma and both looked and felt like a fish out of water on the screen.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

The sequel beats the same path as Diabolik (2021): a stylistic throwback to the 1960s and the (European mystery) cinema of the time, with a close adaptation of the feeling of the comic book. Unfortunately this means that it carries all the flaws of its predecessor, coming across as somewhat flat in performance, or didactic in the exposition. The overall vibe of the first movie was interesting enough to make it worth watching, but now the novelty effect starts to wear off. Isn't the planned trilogy too much, an experiment that has gone on for too long not to come across as self-serving?

The new plot doesn't make up for it. Eva Kant is replaced as the real focus of the film by Ginko, the police inspector relentlessly trying to track down Diabolik (like Ganimard to Lupin). Unfortunately, he's not as captivating of a character as Ms. Kant. Luca Marinelli has been replaced by Giacomo Gianniotti as the actor performing Diabolik, and thankfully he's barely given any screentime: while he may be physically more convincing he's less skilled than Marinelli and he's nowhere mysterious or charismatic enough for anyone to believe he should be this story's lead. Monica Bellucci simply shouldn't have been cast.

Not terrible, but it's a notch down from the first and it's increasingly showing a lack of direction. I worry for what's to come.

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.

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.

I'm not a big fan of the character, but I like the dark and mature universe of the comic. The adaptation seems to me quite faithful to what I have read.

The costumes, the location, the actors, the script, all the ingredients were there to make a descent movie.

The only problem is the lack of talent of the directors (although two). The acting is not very coherent. There are a lot of weird and uninspired shots and the cutting reminds me of Sam Raimi's early work.

It's less mature and violent than the previous one, it has lost some of the toxic mood there was with it's psychopath hero and most murders are off-screen. The actor has been replaced by another with a more pleasant physique, but without the nuances of his predecessor.

Monica Bellucci doesn't bring much to the film, Miriam Leone (the hero's girlfriend) and Valerio Mastandrea (the inspector) do a good job.