Polar Review: 3 Ups & 6 Downs

Downs...

6. Jonas Åkerlund's Sloppy Direction

Polar is helmed by Swedish filmmaker Jonas Åkerlund, whose wildly inconsistent filmography includes the likes of Spun, Horsemen and the new Mayhem biopic Lords of Chaos.

This film is without question the worst effort of his career, and Åkerlund's slapdash direction is a big part of the reason that the movie doesn't really work.

It's clear that Åkerlund wants to evoke a scuzzy style, but where's the energy and the smarts that might make it a knowingly trashy treat?

Instead Åkerlund's film is excessively hyperactive, with atrociously edited action sequences ruining a lot of the film and making the climax especially frustrating to watch.

You can kinda see what he was going for here, but it ends up feeling depressingly amateur and, moreover, lazy.