"With Black Lightning, Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) aimed to
provide Russian teenagers with an American style superhero movie, and it’s fair
to say he achieved just that. Stop me if you’ve heard this one; a students life
turns upside down when he discovers the battered old car his father gave him
can fly. So the set up is pretty unoriginal, ever since Marty McFly took to the
skies in his Delorean, there’s not a single one of us that hasn’t wished their
car could fly. After his world falls apart he makes a choice and shoots from
zero to hero as the hooded crime fighter, Black Lightning. Evil forces are
watching of course, and they will stop at nothing to get what they want, even
if it means destroying the entire city in the process.
Directors Alexander Voitinsky and Dmitry Kiselev lift the
entire plot from the original Spiderman movie and replace the web slinging
antics with a supercharged black Volga. There’s a mugging, wounded scientists,
love triangles, and even the pizza delivery segments are rehashed, re-enacting
the madcap city dash with a corrupt Russian florist instead. It all comes
together pretty well but there’s barely a fresh idea to speak of. Thankfully
we’re talking about an action adventure from the effects team behind Wanted,
and the visual wizardry is at times incredible, with the final showdown set
high above the city streets worth the price of admission alone. The love
triangle plays out pretty well too, even if any right-minded superhero would
have left shallow blond Nastya (Ekaterina Vilkova) to hail a taxi long before
cupid got the chance to take flight.
Unoriginal, slightly batty but undeniably fun, Black
Lightning is a lightweight superhero origin story that entertains more than it
perhaps deserves to. It’s popcorn escapism of the purest form, with not one but
two flying cars. I mean really, what’s not to love about that?" AW
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