The 12-Year-Olds Are Back on the Big Screen - But Is It Worth It?

I went to see the movie 'Олки 12' with my friend and the kids yesterday, December 19th. The first thing that caught my attention was the ticket price. Adult tickets were 480 rubles, and kids' tickets were 240 rubles. I was pretty annoyed that they had already raised the prices, considering there were still over 10 days left until the new year.

But today, I decided to Google the ticket prices, and they were as low as 190 rubles! I felt like such a fool because yesterday was the premiere, and that's why the prices were so high.

Oh well, at least the theater was huge, and it was almost empty.

Plot

The plot of the movie consists of several small stories about different people.

One of the stories is about a boy whose parents are getting divorced, and he runs away to Santa Claus to ask him to make his parents stay together.

Another story is about a father who is waiting for his son and his son's wife to come home for the new year and goes to the forest to cut down a Christmas tree.

There's also a story about a group of friends who meet up on New Year's Eve, including a former military man and his first love.

And finally, there's a story about a hotel maid who falls in love with a snowboarding instructor and decides to join him for a lesson.

And lastly, there's a story about a guy who promises his pregnant wife that he'll buy her an omar for the new year, but things don't go as planned.

I have to say, the plot twists in this movie are pretty crazy. One minute you're following one storyline, and the next, it's a completely different one.

The acting

The cast is pretty impressive, with both well-known actors and some newcomers.

I was really looking forward to seeing Dmitry Nagiyev in this movie, but unfortunately, his character didn't quite work for me. I was expecting some laughs, but it just didn't happen.

Andrey Rozhkov and Olga Kartunkova did a great job, especially Olga.

Julia Topolnitskaya and Dmitry Zhuravlev also did a good job, but there were some moments towards the end where I just didn't believe what was happening.

The young actors did a decent job, but sometimes it felt like they were overacting.

Overall impression

I'm not a huge fan of this movie, to be honest. I've only seen the first three "New Year's Tree" movies.

If I had to rate this movie as a comedy, I'd say it had some funny moments, but it wasn't laugh-out-loud hilarious at any point 🤷‍♀️.

There were a few moments that actually tugged at my heartstrings, but that's about it.

Honestly, it felt like they didn't put a lot of effort into the storyline. Some episodes are left completely unexplained. I mean, the movie's coming out on New Year's, so a lot of people will be going to the cinema and watching it anyway.

If I'm being totally honest, it's worth watching once. So yeah, I'd still recommend it.