Black Crab is a movie that landed on Netflix on 18 March. I was quite excited because it stars the rather damn brilliant Noomi Rapace. She proved her acting chops in the excellent adaption of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and other films so I wanted to see what she’d bring here. And she does bring quite a bit. It’s just a pity that the story is so weak we don’t know what is actually happening.
Set in a post apocalyptic future where Sweden is at war with… someone, Rapace plays Edh, a solider sent on a possible suicide mission to deliver a mcguffin to stop the war. It has many of the usual quest plot tropes that we’ve seen before. Starting out with a group of people who slowly get picked off. The betrayal. The realisation of something. etc. But it still managed to captivate my girlfriend and I for its 114 mins. It was different, that’s why I enjoyed it. It’s not a typical action movie because there is this constant fear that the ice they are skating over will crack. The threat is so palpable it’s like it’s a character. Sure, there are gun battles and fighting, but the snow really made it look new and… fresh.
Adam Berg does a great job directing Black Crab, which is his debut feature film. With some absolutely beautiful underwater shots and scenes that play with shadows over snow. The action is also excellent with some really nice choreographed gun battles. It just loses its way because we don’t know what the hell is going on. Sure, we get flashbacks to Edh’s past. Her daughter kidnapped, check. That’s her motivation? Check. I think the movie also managed to get away with the ‘silent’ antagonist just because of what’s happening in Ukraine right now. It fills in the blanks which would be quite jarring if we were’t seeing what’s happening in the news right now.
Without giving too much away, I found the ending… Crap. There were some really silly things that characters did, when other actions were so bloody obvious. But Black Crab managed to engage me through the sheer force of Rapace’s acting. Damn she is good!
I’d give Black Crab a…
6.75/10
It’s like a delivery quest in a Dark Souls game. Looks stunning, has fun and exciting moments, but lacks narrative.
All the series and all the movies couldn't put society back together again.