Gundala (2019) <Prime>
IMDB: Indonesia's preeminent comic book superhero and his alter ego Sancaka enter the cinematic universe to battle the wicked Pengkor and his diabolical squad of orphan assassins.
TLB: Do not see this film. Staring at shadows on the wall will be more fulfilling. If you did NOT know ahead of time that this was an origin story, one for both our hero Gundala but also for the network of villains he has faced in Indonesian comic books for over 50 years...you would walk away thinking this was a mess (it was).
The good - first act is his childhood, well acted by the small kid and sets the stage for his issues with lightening, general labor and corruption issues in Indonesia, etc. Second act we bring in the villains, primarily Pengkor (kudos to the guy doing this role very well) as a mafia kingpin. The bad I won't knock too hard given this is comic book material, from Indonesia no less. But the third act involves Gundala (Clark Kent name is Sancaka) reluctantly embracing his powers and fighting for rightiousness and justice as Pengkor's plan to corrupt a generation is unleashed. Plot line is Pengkor poisoned the rice supply and all pregnant women will give birth to a generation without morals. Yes, I said 'no morals'. Gundala works with the good guys of gov't to quickly mass produce a vaccine for the pregnant women, only to discover Pengkor poisoned that as well...some get the shot before this is realized, which opens us up to future villains in this comic book universe. The ugly - third act has Gundala getting his butt kicked and some rando woman with a scarf zaps the bad guys and saves him, then disappears. We see her at the end in a cutaway scene that reveals she is Sri Asih, another super hero he teams with in the comics (and got her own movie in 2022...no, I won't watch that either). Also ugly - closing scenes show us another bad guy kingpin (not Pengkor) who returns a head to a long buried body and awakens an ancient evil being who will presumably be the arch enemy across future sequels. There is no explanation really given on this last minute addition of characters, other than this origin film is setting up future options.
Action scenes were minimal, but used the actors and were done in 1 take most times. CGI is ok, not over the top. Characters you got to know pretty well with Gundala and Pengkor and we get to understand and relate to their personalities, their drivers. The first tier of supporting cast aren't overly presented and do their part for the plot well enough. Overall story telling was decent for getting a new superhero to the screen and setting up sequel options based on villains. But the second half of the film gets a little hectic, exposing a ton of plot holes (I get it, it's a comic book, but some of these things are inexcusable). Then the random characters introduced at the end is irriating - necessary for sequels but do nothing for this film other than distract.
Final: 1.5/10. Kudos for being an Indonesian made film, and the fight scenes (very few, but decent) were on par. But overall, no, can't recommend this. I can only see this appealing to fans of Indonesian comics (I'm not one, don't know any).