Lech, a former police sniper with PTSD (Nikolai Naumov from “Real Boys” in the image of Kolyan from “Real Boys”) gets drunk and is openly humiliated in the outback – when he does not have a bottle of vodka in hand, he argues with local homeless people by dipping the same bottle of vodka into a barrel of fuel oil for five minutes. From a state of impenetrable darkness (both literally and figuratively), his sister Katya pulls him out (Maria Ahmetzyanova), who gives his brother an ultimatum: either he immediately moves to Moscow and changes himself radically, or this will be their last meeting.
Katya does not take urgent measures because she is only worried about her brother – the girl has a fatal heart disease, she has nothing to live for, she has no other relatives, so Lekha is the only person with whom she can leave eight years. old daughter Vasilisa (Eva Smirnova from the new version of “Daddy’s daughters”). Lekha goes on an urgent job search to help her sister, but work gets her first – employees of Moscow’s anti-evil department fail to catch the invisible-hat-wearing goblin raiders. In desperation, they turn to the silver plate for advice, and it reminds them of what happened. Kolyan Lekha. Thus, the main character finds himself in a completely new world; Here he has to be a caring uncle, telling bedtime stories to his nephew and at the same time fight with the characters of the same fairy tales in real life.
A frame from the TV series “Magic Plot”
The domestic film industry had previously produced various interpretations of classic Russian fairy tales on a significant scale (“The Last Hero”, “The Little Humpbacked Horse”, etc.), but this became obvious only after the departure of Western studios. flow. Only in the past months, the films “On Your Command” and “Baba Yaga Saves the World” met with the audience, the new episode of the cartoon about the Three Heroes is waiting to be released, and the news is still being discussed. The commercial success of “Cheburashka” – obviously a film adaptation of a Soviet fairy tale, but still essentially folk.
All these projects follow the usual path, following every comma of the repeatedly tested formula for success – the niche of super-profitable children’s and family content has been almost completely liberated by the magical disappearance of the same Disney, in such conditions, it seems, even Ivan the Fool He wouldn’t refuse to occupy this place. But this will do for now: such blatant exploitation without introducing anything new is drying up the genre before our eyes, gradually turning it into Koshchei, who, although immortal and full of gold, has long been of no use to anyone.
Marvel-like cinema also experienced similar problems in its time. For over a decade, studios have been making a bunch of the same kinds of superhero movies; where only the names and scenery were changed and the content copied using Ctrl+C, and they found themselves at a crossroads: if you go right you lose the box office, if you go left Scorsese and company will scornfully compare the product to an “amusement park” and call for a boycott. As a result, companies producing superhero films have chosen the only right way: to seriously replenish the genre with real dramas (Joker) and outrageous hooligan comedies (Deadpool), to which, of course, you can’t really come with children, but you can go with pleasure of your own free will when the child is in kindergarten or at his grandmother.
okko
In this regard, against the background of numerous adaptations of Russian fairy tales in our cinema, “The Magic Lot” is just a kind of “Deadpool” for the genre, a savior with adult jokes. Yes, there is the same Baba Yaga here – but this is not a typical evil old woman, but a webcam girl with a vape (we condemn) using the dark web. Yes, there is the same rejuvenating apple here – but the police chief accidentally eats it and turns into a boy who playfully swears at Lekha’s unknown subordinates and is dragged by the ear as punishment for “playing” with weapons. Yes, there is the same Gorynych the Snake here – but in a man’s body and with the air of the Joker or Billy Milligan. Eventually one of the roles in the series went to comedian Ilya Sobolev, who appeared to be playing a foul-mouthed dwarf, but in reality he was Ilya Sobolev, with all his characteristics.
Such an explosive mixture ran the risk of turning into something strange (again, because this is not a typical movie where everything is already invented for you and it is difficult to make mistakes), but fortunately the project turned out perfectly during the casting. In addition to the above, the show included Philip Yankovsky, Tatyana Dogileva (the magnificent Baba Yaga with her charisma), Gosha Kutsenko, Daria Melnikova (an unexpected collaboration between the old and new “Daddy’s Daughters”), Maria Smolnikova, Ida Galich (!), Pavel Derevianko (Snake Gorynych – a psychopath), Olga Medynich, Nikita Kologrivy and others – joking aside, why is this not the Russian Wonder in the places of folk tales?
The episodes here (judging by the first two) seem to refer to the classic police procedural – a new villain commits a crime (in the pilot episode it is a gang of goblins, in the second part – Zmey Gorynych), Lekha and the company solve the problem, which in parallel will be fully revealed closer to the finale A general story is developing. At the same time, this is not just a procedure, but a procedure diluted with caustic humor (sometimes related to painful topics) and a moderate pinch of action that does not look absolutely shameful.
In general, as they say, a fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it: while other projects in the “folk tale” genre repeat the proverb “go slower” like a mantra, “Magic Plan” is not afraid to experiment and surprise. And there is a feeling in our Far Far Kingdom that this is exactly what the film industry needs.
Source: Gazeta
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.