REVIEW: Imagine a spinoff of JOHN WICK where one of the hundreds – or rather thousands – of killers coming after Keanu Reeves goes home, licks his wounds and winds up jumping into an adventure of his own. That’s POLAR, which tries really hard to be another JOHN WICK but is too sophomoric to ever pass muster as much more than a B-movie, despite a having a few redeeming features, such as some decent action choreography and a top-notch, unusual lead in Mads Mikkelsen.
Part of the problem is director Jonas Åkerlund’s style, which is so over-the-top and cartoonish its like the makers of this never actually had a handle on what made JOHN WICK the success it became — even if it was a like a comic book come to life (which POLAR actually is — being based on a graphic novel) it took the threat and menace of the world its set in seriously. POLAR doesn’t do this, poking so much fun at the genre that it plays out like a spoof, which would be fun had it been funny. The gags, such as Mikkelsen adopting a dog JOHN WICK-style but then accidentally shooting the pooch himself, seem mean-spirited. They also try to have it both ways, breaking from the slapstick comedy, complete with an extremely over-the-top Matt Lucas as the big bad, to get ultra-serious with Vanessa Hudgens’s character, Mads’s quiet neighbour (with a secret- ooh) who gets put through the wringer when the baddies abduct her to get at our anti-hero.
I actually think POLAR would have been relatively decent had it run a half-hour shorter, with too many jokey asides in the first half, and long-winded action scenes that don’t involve Mikkelsen (such as a hit on a cameo-ing Johnny Knoxville) padding out the running time. The movie only picks up steam once Mikkelsen and Hudgens start interacting, and only gets really good once Mads goes on the warpath in the last half hour or so, following a brutal torture scene that goes on and on.