Black Lightning

I absolutely loved this movie! I'm Russian and speak Russian but was not born there, nor have I ever visited. It was an amazing experience for me to see modern Moscow rather than seeing it solely in old Russian classics. The main actors acted VERY well and were VERY good-looking. Some might argue that the plot is a copy of other superhero movies, BUT: every story will always be similar to another. What matters most is the execution. I loved the morals (gently incorporated into the plot) and the action was great. The person-to-person dialogue was very natural and often put a smile on my face. I hate gory movies so this was perfect for me. Definitely go watch it, it's a MUST see!

By the way, I'm giving it a 9/10 instead of 10/10 due to some scientific inaccuracies.

After the huge disappointment of Kick-Ass, I was pleasantly surprised by this little film from Russia. Don't want to give anything away, as I watched it knowing nothing about the movie and that was the best way to watch it. Sure, it borrows heavily from other hero movies, but the acting and the old fashioned heroics were enjoyable.

Special effects I found to be excellent, especially some of the smoke trails. The bad guy in this movie is the same bad guy from the Nightwatch/Daywatch movies, also highly recommended.

If you want to chuckle a bit, and have a few moments where you smile and murmur "Cool!", and want to root for the good guy to win the girl in the end, then I can recommend this movie.

Black Lightning is your 'typical' story of an ordinary boy, who is given an incredible flying car for his birthday. He then uses the car to become rich in order to win the heart of a girl, but becomes embroiled in a fiendish plot which could end up destroying Moscow!

Black Lightning is fun for kids of all ages, although the very young may not be able to keep up. If young children don't like the subtitles, the dubbing is pretty good, with annoying voices kept to a minimum. The performances are decent, the story is well paced and the action is interspersed at regular intervals throughout. Even if you don't become totally involved with the film, you can enjoy yourself spotting which script ideas have been taken from other films. SM

Black Lightning was a long way from perfect. The story is very derivative and does get rather predictable, while the ending is a little rushed and over-complicated(perhaps too much going on in the script and the action) and a lot of the special effects are rather hokey and more at home in the late 80s-early 90s. The script, while having some great ironic humour, can feel empty and awkward-sounding at times too. Black Lightning is slickly shot though, with a convincing setting. The Russian heavy-metal soundtrack pulsates through the film with great energy and is quite catchy as well, and the pacing is fine. The action is fun and exciting to watch if occasionally a little cheesy, and the ironic humour in the script is funny and endearing. The characters are derivative and clichéd like the story but still quite engaging, the hero and his love interest are likable and the villain(though his motivation does come across as rather silly) does give an aura of creepiness. The acting is good, especially from Grigory Dobrygin and Viktor Verzhbitsky, though Ekaterina Vilkova is visually gorgeous and at least adequate. All in all, derivative with some hokey effects and a rushed solution, but fun, slick and well played. Partially recommended but try not to over-think too much. 6/10 Bethany Cox

First of all, I didn't realize it was Russian. It was dubbed in English so there were no annoying sub-titles. There were a few times when they show a newspaper headline or something on a computer that was in Russian, but it didn't take away from the story. The young man who played Black Lightning looked amazingly like Hayden Christenson from Jumper and the second set of Star Wars movies. He was very good in the role and he could easily play in American movies if he spoke English. His girlfriend was adorable as well. The special effects were not top notch but good enough to make the movie enjoyable. And of course there was the character you loved to hate, the evil rich guy who wanted to use the Black Lightning secrets, well, I can't tell you why. All in all, it was a very enjoyable movie.