‘Polar’ is an absolute dumpster fire that fails to deliver on its potential
By Jack Murphy// A&E Editor
Mads Mikkelsen stars as John Wick 2.0 in “Polar,” Netflix’s newest hard R action thriller based off of the graphic novel. “Polar” is directed by Jonas Åkerlund and stars Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katherine Winnick and Matt Lucas. It is the tale of a retired assassin who has to go after his former employers trying to kill him. The controversy leads to a lot of action scenes. “Polar” had a cool looking trailer online, and I’m a big fan of Mikkelsen from his roles in my favorite James Bond movie “Casino Royale” and “The Hunt.” I thought “Polar” would be a bunch of dumb fun, and it was on Netflix, meaning I didn’t have to pay for a ticket to see it. But, does “Polar” deliver in being a dumb action movie that I can turn my brain off and watch…kinda?
First off, I really enjoy Mads Mikkelsen as this quiet, haunted, and incredible assassin, which was the whole reason why I watched “Polar” in the first place. Whenever he’s on screen, “Polar” works for me. He does a good job in most of his action scenes, and whenever he’s just doing his thing, it’s enjoyable to watch him try to settle into a comfortable life. Vanessa Hudgens is also good as this photographer trying to recover from a horrible past. There are some entertaining action scenes, and Mikkelsen preforms well-ahead of his co-stars.
However, it takes an hour to get to our first action scene because “Polar” spends so much of its time on its villains, and wow, they are awful. These villains don’t even deserve to be recognized by their character names because one, I don’t remember and two, they’re so bad they don’t deserve it. The first half cuts back and forth between the villains and Mikkelsen and it spends, possibly, more time on the villains then Mikkelsen. They have no character; they’re just cocky and annoying.
The opening of the film involving the villains and Johnny Knoxville is one of the worst openings to a movie I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so stupid, so dumb, so poorly acted and not funny at all. I’m not going to spoil it, but I wanted to delete my Netflix account after I watched it. They even managed to ruin “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire, which is nearly impossible to do, but “Polar” managed to do it.
By far the worst character in the film is Blut, played by Matt Lucas. He’s a snarky, annoying, British guy who belongs in the Jar Jar Bink’s hall of fame for annoying movie characters. He isn’t written well enough to be menacing and his performance is so over the top that it just doesn’t work what-so-ever.
Overall, “Polar” is a hard R action film that had so much potential, but is not worth anyone’s time. Mikkelsen is good, but in all honesty, I only enjoyed “Polar” at times because I love movies that are so bad they can be entertainind. I can’t see anyone else watching “Polar” and saying, “Wow, that was worth two hours of my life.” Overall, I’m gonna give “Polar” a “D-.”
Mads Mikkelsen stars as a retired assassin seeking revenge against his former employers. Photo by Netflix