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| Is "Man, Tera-ble" too obvious? |
Directed by: Mohd Aliyar Ali Kuthy, Miza Mohamad (Co-directed by Azmer Shazly Norazhar and Roman Doronin)
Produced by: Flare Studios, Miza Mohamad, Mohd Rafa'e Abdullah, Khairul Anuar Mohd. Ariff, Azmer Shazly Norazhar, Spacetoon Media Hub (M), Fayez Weiss al-Sabbagh, Sharifah Hendon al-Yahya
Written by: Miza Mohamad, Khairul Anuar Mohd. Ariff, Azmer Shazly Norazhar
Budget: $4,000,000 (estimated)
Starring: Tomok Shah Indrawan, Kamaliya, Mikhail Dorojhkin
Mantera has sat in my Netflix queue since I first saw the poster and its single star rating. I had never quite worked up the courage to watch this little foreign film and thought this would be a great opportunity.
Azman is a normal kid living it up in Malaysia: getting bullied, playing video games, and fixing cars with his bro, bro. But when a mysterious package is delivered which turns out to be an alien (maybe?) motorcycle/mech-suit, Azman finds himself caught in a war between the forces of the Alliance of Light and the Dark Legion, because he's the chosen one.
Mantera is a Malaysian action film which takes parts from probably dozens of other movies which closely rides the line between so bad it's good and so bad it's bad. Is it fair to judge a foreign science fiction film by American standards? Maybe not, but there are certain aspects to movie-making which determine the quality of a film independent of its nation of origin, and Mantera doesn't quite fulfill all of them.
The Good
Certain effects look alright when the specific shots don't last too long. The first scene where Azman tries the glove and helmet on is perfectly fine as a memory-upload sequence.
The choreography in the Iron Man finale is fine, with a combination of robot-sword-fighting and martial arts. To go along with this some of the robot designs aren't too bad.
Certain shots are handled well. At one point Azman, wearing Mantera, is hit by a bus. When it comes time to show the damage the reveal is done through a slow pan up to show the huge dent in the vehicle. It's a nice touch, and I wish the rest of the movie had been done this well.
The Bad
The majority of these actors either have zero experience or aren't actually actors. Special mention goes to Kamaliya, who plays Doctor Natasha with lazy line reading, subpar physical acting, and the emotional output of Dolph Lundgren. Turns out she was actually Mrs. World in 2008, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
The movie feels dated by about 15-20 years in most aspects. There's the nerdy character with a pack of potentially homicidal bullies who combine their baseballs bats with names like "Ass-man." The main character uses his video game knowledge to save the day, there's an evil overlord who strokes his chin with menace and even a male shopping montage.
The dubbing is really, really...weird. I'm not going to say it's bad, but it's definitely distracting, as some scenes have the actors lip-syncing the English dialogue well enough, while others are obviously dubbed over the actors speaking their own language...but sometimes they lip a line or two in English before it falls out of sync.
When the movie transitions to an action scene it's not much better. The robot designs, while fine on their own, look like something out of the Star Wars Clone Wars television series. Their movements are jerky and don't have any weight behind them, which serves to make the animations look even cheaper. This is also partially a fault of the choreography, which, while passable, doesn't hold up too well when combine with the CG. It felt like I was watching a video game cutscene whenever there was a robot fight on screen.
The ending is absurd sequel bait, to the point where nothing seems very accomplished. It feels like it ends during the climax, and actually ends on the same shot as when it opened. Alongside this I'm fairly certain that in some of the back-and-forth dialogue scenes they reused footage for the actor's responses.
The Rest
It was fun to watch this and see if I could identify everything that had been done in better movies.
Should You Watch it?
Honestly...I feel like this is another one where you should get a group together, get some beers, and watch it for comedy's sake. While the first half hour or so drags a bit, the movie grew on me any time there was action on screen, from Curly Minion's hilarious attempt at being Bourne to Colonel Ayman and his exposition-montage which seems to claim Mantera goes back to the dawn of humanity?
So yeah, with the right group Mantera is probably worth the 90 minutes it'll take to watch. Enjoy the bizarre production choices and totally radical, bro, dialogue.
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