Why do I call this film the first? Isn't "Film Noir" from 2007 the first? Well, in this film, they speak in native Serbian, and almost all the background texts are written in Serbian. In contrast, "Film Noir" was in American co-production and didn't have any Serbian elements, except for the crew who worked on it.
This film couldn't have had a better cast, who did a completely decent job, considering that this time they weren't dubbing some foreign cartoon, but were working on an original project from their homeland.
AND NOW TO THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF THIS FILM: ANIMATION
The animation style reminds me a lot of Marvel's "What If...?", except it is a hundred times worse in quality. The animation simply can't be compared to Hollywood standards, as it was made in small Serbia, with a modest budget of just under a million euros.
That amount of money only leads me to note that my two sharp eyes spotted over 50 animation errors during my first viewing, which is completely absurd given that three people were responsible for the final check and correction of the animation, to whom I would gladly give a boot from my studio. Instead of the animation being the dominant aspect of this film, it only embarrassed itself along with poor editing in some action scenes. It seemed to me that in every frame they cut the effort and budget by 50% from the maximum potential of the animation. Some backgrounds and textures were phenomenal, while others just fit okay into the scene.
The 3D renders are excellently designed but very poorly animated, especially when throwing a tool or object like those tablets or a peasant throwing a rake, as if gravity from Mars was in play.
The story is complex, but at a moderate level of understanding, making it interesting. The script and story were a big win for this film because without them, this film would be a failure in all aspects. There were also many pop culture references, such as a Serbian peasant shouting "I'll call the kids", and Sloboda Milosevic... The humor was solid, with a few laughs here and there, but not overly emphasized.
The beginning of the film was done correctly, introducing us to the characters, the appearance of the world and community, and a gradual introduction to the mystery, while everything starts to heat up at halftime. As for the design of the world and the appearance of Belgrade 2077, there were many creative and interesting concepts of the future, a lot of famous buildings in Belgrade were shown in a modernized or untouched state. I particularly liked how people buy burek in a small bakery like a kiosk, flying cars, buses, an anti-gravity club where they drink floating drinks, that hoverboard sport, the installation of illegal chips...
I think that cyberpunk world wasn't utilized to its fullest potential (considering I didn't see any laser guns), but given that the action is set in Serbia, probably in that time technology would be lagging compared to other countries, so I have no complaints here.
If the story hadn't fascinated me as much as it did, but not on a 10/10 level, I would give this film a 6 or maybe even a 5, because they really embarrassed themselves with the animation, editing, and mistakes on an unforgivable level. It's evident that Serbia is still inexperienced in the field of animation and is about 80 years behind America.
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