Though they might churn out the most product, Hollywood isn’t the only place that delivers big budget dross. Already being eyed for a Hollywood remake by Timur Bekmambetov (who also produced the film), Russia’s “Black Lightning” is an expensive, big spectacle of blockbuster that delivers all the special effects and set pieces one would expect along with tired dialogue, stock characters and predetermined plot that have unfortunately become routine for these sorts of productions.
Falling somewhere between “Spiderman” and “Transformers,” the film follows Dima (Grigoriy Dobrygin), a high school student whose lack of funds makes wooing the ladies a somewhat futile affair. A new girl Nastya (Ektarina Vilkova) joins his class and catches his eye, but ends up seeing his friend Maxim (Ivan Zhidkov), a Mercedes-driving, iPhone-using prep. Dima is disheartened until a local diamond magnate Kuptsov (Viktor Verzhbitsky) gives a lecture in class and instills in Dima the lesson that greed is good and helping people is for suckers. With this new mindset, Dima finds a job delivering flowers driving around in a beat up Volga, a recent birthday present courtesy of his parents, in hopes of raising enough cash so he can woo and win over Nastya.
However, there is more than meets the eye with Kuptsov. Buried deep underneath metropolitan Moscow is a trove of diamonds unlike anything ever seen before. He has been trying to drill for them for years, but is forever stymied by the lack of power his equipment requires to bore that far into the earth. You see, the diamonds are hidden underneath the “foundations” of Moscow, a place not only treacherous because of how deep it is, but also because going down that far will pretty much mean leaving the city in ruins. But Kuptsov isn’t bothered by such matters. He wants his diamonds. Luckily, he has uncovered nanopower; first researched by scientists during the Soviet era, it was developed using moon crystals that came to Earth mumble mumble blah blah blah. Anyway, part of that research at the time included putting that technology into cars (and you can see where this is going) and for Kuptsov to utilize nanopower, he will need the nanocatalyst that (surprise) is hidden within the ancient Volga given to Dima.
So what does nanopower do? Well basically it’s just superenergy of some kind that can use regular gasoline and then through some alchemical process make it, like, super duper. In Dima’s case, that means his Volga, a prototype built during the Soviet era, with a couple pushes of buttons, sprouts wings, some serious afterburners and can fly through the air. Once Dima discovers the secret abilities of his car, he uses it the way any young teen would: to do his job better and make more money (Gordon Gecko would be proud). His selfish drive for money strains his relationship with his father, but when his Dad is murdered in cold blood Dima decides to use his flying car do good deeds, and thus Black Lightning is born. If it sounds like a lot of exposition, it is, and it takes up nearly two thirds the film to get all of these plot points sorted out. Anyway, Black Lightning becomes a superhero overnight (Dima remains anonymous by wearing a really big hoodie) but it isn’t long before Kuptsov figures out that his nanocatalyst is in that flying car and he sets out to get it.
The problems with “Black Lightning” are exactly the same as the ones that plague any big budget film that puts effects and product placement (Mentos in this case) on the same level as the talent involved. Characterization is essentially non-existent here, with everyone merely slotted into their roles that are mapped out on script that seems to have been written from a template. Dima is good, Kuptsov is evil and murderous, Nastya is a pretty face and that’s about it. It’s hard to get too worked up or involved when lives are on the line during the film’s climax, because we don’t particularly care about the characters. It says something that the film’s big set piece — a mid-air, dual flying car, missile fueled battle over Moscow — raised our pulse rate more than anything the actors themselves said or did on screen.
It’s frankly no wonder that Hollywood wants to revamp it for North America. The thing sells itself: teenager with a flying car fights crime. Hell, that’s probably how Bekmambetov pitched it around town to young execs hoping to move up the studio chain. And frankly, the material is exactly the kind of tepid, easily marketable stuff Hollywood falls all over themselves to make. There is nothing remarkable or special about “Black Lightning” and it’s certainly not worth tracking down in advance of its American reboot. If you can imagine Peter Parker driving a car through Manhattan skies instead of slinging webs, you’ve pretty much seen the film already. [C]