Polar Movie Review: Mads Mikkelsen Cannot Save It From Being The Worst Netflix Original Of All Time

Priyansh Ha |Jan 30, 2019

If Netflix the worst original movies award, there is no doubt that Polar will be the brightest candidate.

Director: Jonas Åkerlund

Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Katheryn Winnick, Vanessa Hudgens,  Matt Lucas

Rating: 1/5

Jonas Åkerlund seems to be the only reason you want to check this out. The name of Swedish director, however, cannot save Polar from being the potential winner for the worst Netflix original movies award.

The movie tells the story based on a favourite comic book. However, it weirdly replaces the spirit of the original and supports the amorality of Åkerlund’s punk rock. The same situation happened to the Transformers when Michael Bay spoiled it with his own sensibilities. The case of Åkerlund's production has a smaller impact, but he was famous in the past for unique visual taste both in his music videos and films.

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Mads Mikkelsen Cannot Save It From Being The Worst Netflix Original Of All Time.

It Has Nothing In Common With The Comic Version

For anyone who hasn’t read the comic version, It was a cinematic-inspired piece of work. Author Victor Santos gathered everything from John Woo’s films to Le Samourai of Jean-Pierre Melville into his work. The movie, however, will bring you a different experience though it doesn’t mean to subvert the comic one. It seems like Polar has been beaten by John Wick movies on its home turf.

Polar is a complex story about a hitman called The Black Kaiser, (Mads Mikkelsen) who is about to retire. Unfortunately, his former employer draws him back to the deadly game one more time. The Black Kaiser, whose real name is Duncan Vizla, is legendary to his underground hitman community. This is a kind of surreal world where all female characters dress like they hate wearing clothes and all men speak with growling voices.

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A Flat Drama With Hyper-violence

Starring in Åkerlund’s movie also has Matt Lucas in the role of the evil Mr Blut, who is the lord of the hitmen world. He is an odd combination of a Bond villain’s appearance and Looney Toons’s intellect. Facing the risk of bankruptcy, he cooks up the evilest plan ever. By hiring employees to kill others, he can get their life insurance for himself. If the movie is trying to convey the statement on an immoral organisation who scams their employees and competitive to each other, it is definitely a failure as we get lost in overloaded violent action and flat drama.

It’s not too much to say that Polar is one of the most disgusting movies I have ever seen, regarding both content and visual. Skipping the unique visuals of the black and white in Sin City, the film adds lurid colour panels and jarring tags to inform everything from character names to the location. While the comic version completely lacks speech, you will find the most bizarre script ever getting stuck in Mads Mikkelsen’s throat.

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It's Full Of Nihilism And The Soullessness

However, the most unacceptable thing belongs to the nihilism and the soullessness oozing out from every single scene. With too much violent actions and vacuous content, the movie is too painful for the audience to watch. If there is anything which can be compared to the disrespect for the audience, it must be the disrespect for women. Most of the female character gives us the feeling of stripping for some sleazeballs. In short, there is nothing to do with violence or the role of women in this male-centric film.

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With Polar, Åkerlund seems not to go any further from his first film Spun. The performance of Mads Mikkelsen and the atmospheric soundtrack from Deadmau5 becomes grotesque in a ridiculous exercise.  It can be sure that no one is patient enough to stay until the end of it.

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