User Reviews

First Finnish super hero, Rendel, between all superheros seen in different countries, genres and universes has one, unique characteristic.... is Finnish! Approaching this film my main thought was to find something new, unusual, something I couldn't find in all blockbusters as well as smaller but still 'American-made' films about caped vigilantes with good intentions. Did I find it? Nope. Pretty much everything that Rendel brings to the screen, has been seen before: Batman's eyes and darkness, Punisher's motivation and merciless, another villainy corporation with money and business as motivation to kill numbers of innocent people etc. Sorry, we have seen it already bazillion times... Fight choreography taken straight from wrestling areas, stereotypical characters and weapons, quick action cuts, to create impression of dynamics, and don't show you that fists and kicks are landing always 3 inches away from opponents face. Really, should I be impressed? Every country, every culture, every nation, every majority and minority deserve its superhero. If only each country in Europe has its own superhero, chance of getting something new in this genre would significantly increase. Finland already has Rendel. Now it's time for the others! Iceland! San Marino! Please bring us something we haven't seen, it's still possible! Impossible is nothing for superheroes!

Evidently if you take away Spawn's powers, and use a similar costume, and maintain the same gritty, dark, shadowy industrial gothic city setting, NO ONE WILL NOTICE SOMEHOW

Some sinister corporation has developed a vaccine for developing countries. The place is run by the evil boss and his partying dumber son who's supposed to take the reigns of the corporation. In town though there is a vigilante going after bad guys who by accident starts to get closer and closer to the corporation. But there is a pretty reporter who has an inkling that something isn't right with the corporation, she also by accident comes in contact with our hero--Rendel. Another story involves some ethical employee somewhere who interviews some wicked little guy but doesn't hire him despite the warnings of the little guy. Sure enough, the little guy gets our employee fired...and then hires him at the evil corporation. The employee eventually uncovers something at the corporation which leads the boss's son the go after the guy and his family. These two stories eventually converge as Rendel goes head-on after the corporation which has hired a bunch of incompetent criminals to eliminate him.

Rendel reminds me of a long (1:45) episode of Arrow but without the charisma, not a surprise given that it's a Finnish production. Otherwise it's competent work with mostly decent action and some interesting bits in the story. Maybe the sequel won't be filmed in complete darkness which gets tiring pretty fast. With some tighter editing this movie would have improved but for an European, and Finnish at that, attempt at action, Rendel is ok.

As with others who commented, I was thinking a "Finnish super hero" would be unique and not something that was a rehash of other super hero/vengeance movies.

Well, I was disappointed, to say the least. This movie is just terrible in so many ways. None of the characters (except for the two older "helpers" for the bad guy) are at all likeable or semi-interesting. The rest are cardboard cut-outs and are never developed beyond their introductions. Also, one never gets to see their faces very clearly since this seems to be filmed six feet away from any speaking character in semi-darkness!

Next is the combat - or what the director considered to be combat. And it is just laughable! Rendel is a lumbering, chubby "super hero" who, along with his combatants, are slow and sluggish when beating each other up! I did laugh out loud at the first "fight" sequence because it was like something from a 1940s movie!

Lastly, the "plot" is typical while at the same time murky. Much of what the good and bad guys do is vague and unexplained. It's just boring!

The main theme of drug dealers and what they do has been done to death and isn't even done well in this mish-mash of cobbled together old ideas! The mythical Finnish town is ugly and uninteresting and we don't get to see any lovely Finnish countryside!

I bought this for $1 at the Dollar Tree so am not out much for this turkey. Do not pay any more than a dollar or less for this movie. It's a big disappointment for anyone looking for coherence or even action!

Skip it!

The trailer itself looked decent, but this movie is what I call a catastrophy. Absurd acting, awful screen writing, dialogs were full of cliches and the plot had more holes than there are black holes in space. I tried hard to find atleast something to grab on and say - yeah atleast they've had that, but no. It is just ridiculous. It's as if the scenario was written by some one who has absolutely no skill at all.

Starts very slow with no major storyline Was expecting much better but do not waste your time

Finland may be famous from some things but one of those definitely is not action films. Only small independent groups seem to make those. Major studios sometimes make crime thrillers and they put violence in dramas too but pretty much never real action flicks.

So, when rating Rendel I feel like the sheer fact that it is a Finnish action film makes me want to give it more points, because I'm so glad someone in the country finally tries to make something cool.

Rendel as a character is quite cool indeed, at least the costume looks good. In essence he is a bit like The Punisher, a vigilante on a revenge mission. The only thing a bit weird to me was that he almost always goes fist fighting even if the enemies have machine guns. I get it his tactic is sneaking and attacking from behind but I just think his boxing method is a bit too unbelievable (because he doesn't have superpowers - or does he?). The hero's origin story is explained in flashbacks of some sort, but not every detail, so part of his "birth" is left a bit mysterious. I think that should have been explained a bit more thorough because it feels a bit random how he got his powers/abilities.

The movie has quite a dark tone which combines the loud punching sounds of action films with traditional Finnish style of crime films which are often rooted in a more realistic/cynical atmosphere...ruthless villains, lots of shouting and swearing.

Overall I'm left a bit conflicted. It's perhaps not quite as good as I hoped for but still step forward in Finnish genre cinema. In comparison to international action movies, well, I think it's average/decent. Recommended for fans of dark masked vigilantes...but not others.

Ya know, I wish we could comment on other's Comments! Because there are SO many Really Bright, and to the point Reviewers on here, people that don't spend an ENTIRE movie just trying to find Fault in it. They can't just go I to a movie with an Open Mind and Judge it accordingly! There's MANY things involved in reviewing a Movie, to ME, 1st and foremost I look at the Budget! Low Budget does NOT mean BAD FILM, it just means they had to work a HELLUVA lot harder to produce their End Product. They don't have the luxury of 10 or 15 "Takes", most of the time they have to shoot the scene once and move on whether it's good or not due to budget constraints, the same with effects... But if the premise is good, and the storyline is good and the actors do the very best they can do nine out of 10 times they put out a really good movie! But you have to be able to look past the low budget, and the flaws!

This is a REALLY good Movie!

I LOVED it and if you can match the above criteria, and not going in already to look for the bad, you can allow yourself to enjoy a LOT more!

GREAT Flick!

Give it a Whirl!

Nonstop meh. Action-packed meh. Pulse-pounding meh. Edge of your seat meh. Adrenaline rushing meh. White knuckled, fist clenching meh. Rob Zombie clone of meh. Valentine, Dark Avenger imitating meh. Gets a four, because it was only meh. It wasn't worse than meh; but couldn't rise above meh. MEH!!

As I understand this is an Origin and there was not a comic before the movie was conceived. Of course now, after the movie, there probably will be some comics to go with the movie. For an origin, this is more than decent. It's dark, it has weird characters and it has good action sequences in it.

The main character who embodies traits from other existing characters from comic books (like The Crow or even The Darkness, which is also a video game). Unfortunately he is a bit bland, which is probably one of the main point everyone is criticizing the movie for. And it's valid criticism, just try to avoid putting this on the same scale, when it comes to character then other movies. The special effects are more than good and it is anything but politically correct. So just sit back and enjoy this - if you can

I really wanted to like this. Finally somebody tried to do a decent finnish action movie, and Redel looked kind of cool. Unfortunately that was all this had going on. There really was no story to speak of, and bad guys were bad, because...? ...they needed to be bad to give the hero an excuse to beat them up? At least the writer could have given a proper background to Vala and the vaccine it was testing. What was it for, and why it was needed so urgently.

I went to see this movie with no expectations. I was afraid that it would be similar to the Dark Knight and follow ups, which didn't contain ANY humor at all. I was pleasantly surprised! Rendel has some nice funny shots for dark humor friends. I especially liked how the movie handled the bad-ass professional bounty hunters. The violence was almost too realistic at times. The scene where The Punis.. No i mean Rendel gets angry and is born is very violent. Maybe a bit too violent and graphic. The movies pacing could need some work. The movie is boring at a time, and the past scenes are a bit unclear when they start and end. Of course one can deduct when a scene is from the past but it is somewhat confusing. The story has nothing new, but it is fairly consistent. Acting is surprisingly good. Especially the bad guys did very good performances. The almost innocent baddies duo was funny at some times, they were just working there. Considering the experience of the crew, budget and filming location, this feature is simply amazing. I heartily thank all of the staff involved in this film. And special thanks to Jesse Haaja for making this possible! All things considering, 8/10.

Down here at the End of the World, as they like to call it, one of the perks is getting transmissions from Cubavision, an FTA channel broadcast from 30°W, orbitting at 30,000 kilometers above the surface of the planet.

Sometimes this channel shows some pretty unusual stuff, as evidenced by RENDEL which showed up with a Euromix of tongues including some Hoch-Deutsch, a smattering of Russkie, suomi, some words of English with added subtitles in Spanish. Of course, the movie doesn't *come* with subtitles.

It was a movie that might hearken to the Bat-Guy but much, much darker and violent. It was highlighted by insane humour that could only be described as macabre. It was also very satisfying, in a way that eventually a house fire is extinguished.

Would I see this again? Sure. And there is a sequel in the works. I recommend it. Unless you're looking for a version of The Sound of Music.

A Finnish superhero, a dc comic style made in a small country of Europe, hearing that is like wow that's something we don't see every day. Watching the trailer it looks very promising, cool music and cool scenes. But that's selected as watch bates. After finally watching the movie, it was weird and didn't feel serious and the soundtrack was disappointing.

In a distant future, Jarno the Roth control the world with fear and his crime syndicate organization, until one day a masked demon attack his crime way and break a war with Jarno by killing his henchmen one by one, but who is he and why is he attacking Jarno? Simple.....revenge.

The color in some scenes are excellent dark city with yellow colored windows or area, really cool, and cool action scenes sometimes but there it ends.

While some scenes background looks great but other scenes like the outdoor looks cheap like an independent film but the worse is when the some of the cast doesn't look like they take this movie seriously. Sometimes it's serious then the next it's goofy, that's what I hate some European movies, when they have an idea to make a Hollywood style movie, they get scared and make it goofy instead. This movie is just like that. Don't be scared, just do it.

I give it 5/10 for the ambition but seriously the trailer were better.

Ok, we saw avengers film with every sauce, from Charles Bronson's Death Wish to the Punisher and DeathPool.

Themes are the same, the Good vs the Evil that use same weapons, the violence, but the Good prevails because is Good, with infinite light declinations.

Why this film has to be considered? Because it's Finnish, because it's canonical and well designed although the poor money available, a perfect avenger comic movie.

It' qualitatively worst than USA comic movies? Yes, but few money available the result is good. I appreciated the fotographie, the customs and the "funny" old school stereotypical comic characters. The combat choreographies are few realistic but appropriately funny for a comic movie.

So, no so bad for the first time. Let they go ahead!

I have seen dozens of Hollywood-movies with way worse writing and screenplay. This is a low budget film with good script and storyline. If this was a Hollywood movie, of course it would be better, but also worse in many ways. I enjoyed the "raw and unpolished" storyline much better than predictable and cheesy big budget movies.

This movie could have a cult following in a small scale.

Quite dark, fun humor. Decent streetfight style.

I like movies, where everything in plot is not spelled out for viewer.

This movie is absolutely badass. I enjoyed every minute of this film. Definitely want more

"Help me if you can, I feeling down and I really appreciate you being 'round;" Rendel is a remake movie of a remake movie. It won awards, but I don't see how. Hopefully, I'll figure it out down the way. Help me, if you can. I GAVE it a 10 because it won awards and was nominated for some recognitions; so, I "10" it to help balance out the negative. [Because, it has something I'm not seeing.]

This movie is the best movie ever. It as superhero, its dubbed in english, it has awesome CGI.. everything you ever want.