Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
image © Kinokompania Bolshoye Kino & Fresh Film & Mars Media Entertainment & Gpm Kit (Gazprom)
Article updated: 2021.06.23
The Koma / Coma (2019) is a sci-fi / fantasy adventure / mystery film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.
Product: Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
Original title: Кома, English title: Coma
Series: -
Setting: alternate Earth
Product type: Film, Genre: sci-fi / fantasy / adventure / myster, Style: sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, mystery
Release: Premiere: 2019.11.19, Release: 2020.01.30
Reviewer: Kadmon, Type: Male, 40s, Preferences: Immersive, logical story, consistent setting, prefers surprises to spoilers, prefers establishing elements before referencing them
Watched: recently (2021.01), first time
Rating: Good (2+ out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points)
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This is my review of Coma, a sci-fi / fantasy adventure / mystery movie from 2019. It's about people trapped in a strange world, who try to find a way to defeat their enemy. The Coma film is interesting, I recommend it.
If you'd like to be totally surprised by the Coma film, I don't recommend you to watch the trailer. For a film based on the unknown, it's pretty hard to make a trailer that won't spoil anything from the story, so there's plenty of things that look interesting, but takes a little away from the watching experience. So it's really up to you if you watch it, or not.
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Review (spoiler-free) - Coma, movie (2019)
I think I've just run into the Coma movie, when I was trying to find something interesting to watch. I didn't watch the trailer, as I didn't want to spoil the movie.
The Come movie is about people trapped in a strange world, who try to find a way to defeat their enemy.
The story is not perfect, but it's interesting. I don't remember any character arcs, but the story is plot-driven anyway.
The cinematography is good. Visually the story is very interesting. I think it's worth starting to watch the movie just for the visuals of the beginning.
The main character was a little bland, but I liked all the others. Those characters in the main cast were distinct and interesting, and the actors were good. There are no character arcs, the story focuses on the plot.
The music is okay. I don't particularly remember it, but that means it was not distracting.
The Coma is an interesting sci-fi / fantasy thriller, I think fans of the genre will enjoy it.
My experience
I was mostly satisfied with Coma (2019). I liked the action scenes and the setting.
Rating: Good (2+ out of 3 points). Coma is a good looking film.
Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points). Coma is interesting, I liked it.
Rewatchability: I think it's high. If you liked it, you probably liked it for the visuals.
Chance of watching it again: There's a chance. I liked it enough that I might watch it in the right circumstances.
Chance of watching a sequel: High. I'd sure watch it.
Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
image © Kinokompania Bolshoye Kino & Fresh Film & Mars Media Entertainment & Gpm Kit (Gazprom)
Will you enjoy this?
If you like mystery or thriller movies, you might like Coma.
If you like strange adventures, Coma is pretty strange indeed.
Watching for plot points
If you like watching movies for the interesting plot elements, I think Coma is definitely worth watching.
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Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
image © Kinokompania Bolshoye Kino & Fresh Film & Mars Media Entertainment & Gpm Kit (Gazprom)
Review with spoilers - Coma, movie (2019)
I liked the Coma movie.
The title is probably not the best choice, though. First, it's too revealing, second, it's pretty generic.
Although I'm pretty sure that memories are not shaped like neurons, but I actually admire that the creators came up with this way to visualise them in a distinct way. While this limits the imagination, it also gives boundaries to use, and that helps both the creators and the audience.
Promise of the first scene
We see a nice futuristic place rotting away, as we cut to a car crash. The next scene starts with the rebuilding of the model of the nice place as a man is waking up. I have absolutely no idea what is going on and where will they take the story. (But it's an interesting start, so that's good.)
Execution: It was nice to see that the futuristic place and the waking man was the focal point for the end of the story.
Plot summary / Synopsis
A young man (Rinal Mukhametov as Viktor / The Architect) wakes up to find himself in a strange world, that looks like it's decaying. When he gets outside, people do not react to his presence. A black creature appears to attack him, but he is saved by three people (Anton Pampushnyy as Phantom, Lyubov Aksyonova as Fly, Alexey Lubchenko as Pilot), although one of them (Pilot) is lost in the fight, and Phantom is injured by the creature.
The young man is taken to a community, who have built a shelter. They are lead by Yan (Konstantin Lavronenko). There he meets others (Milos Bikovich as Astronom, Polina Kuzminskaya as Spirit, Rostislav Gulbis as Gnome, Vilen Babichev as Tan, Leonid Timtsunik as Kabel). They try to find his special abilities with tests. He sometimes have dreams of the real world. He also gets attracted to Fly, and she shows some interest, but she is with Phantom.
During a supply run, the young man's ability of creating things manifests. They want to use his ability to create a perfect shelter for the whole community. They go to find a place, but Phantom, who is jealous of him, tries to have the young man killed by the creatures. The young man is saved, Phantom is revealed as a creature, and other creatures attack the group, killing many of them. The young man suddenly feels unwell.
The young man wakes up from the coma, and remembers that he was about to join a project where he could create the city of his dreams. The organisation is run by Yan, who keeps coma patients in the basement. He intends to create a refuge from the real world, as time runs faster in the dream world, so they could live multiple lifetimes there. They want to send the young man in a coma, so he could this dream city in the dream world. The young man gets scared and runs away. He is saved by his girlfriend (who looks like Fly), and they try to get away in a car, when they have an accident. In order to save his girlfriend, the young man decides to enter the dream world.
The young man arrives back, and builds the dream city for Yan, but Yan turns against them, and leaves them. They realise that they can be awaken from their coma, if they find their dreaming bodies in the dream world, as somebody must remember them. They race to the institute, and they are attacked by Yan, but the creature that was Phantom kills Yan. They young man and his girlfriend wake up, and they leave the place.
The setting
Contemporary or near-future Earth.
They have technology to enter into a collectively created dream world. They want to use it to build an own world where they can live multiple timespans.
Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
image © Kinokompania Bolshoye Kino & Fresh Film & Mars Media Entertainment & Gpm Kit (Gazprom)
The dream world
The memories of the dreamers manifest in the shapes of neurons. The larger solid parts are called islands, and they are connected by trails. As the memories are not always perfect, the things often look unreal, or have missing parts. The islands have normal gravity, but between those, gravity seems to be lower. There are places that are shared memories of multiple people, and those act as portals between memories. The trails can be blown up by explosives, but when people start to remember them, they are rebuilt.
Time runs faster in the dream world than in the reality. A day in the real world is a hundred day in the dream world.
There's a cycle of day-time and night-time. The nights are dimmer, but not totally dark.
The dreamers don't remember their real names, so they use nicknames. If they die in the dream world, they also die in the real world. Some dreamers manifest supernatural powers, especially if they are put in dangerous situations. Some people can create things. When they are asleep in the dream world, their dreams shape their surroundings.
The dreamers have built a shelter to hide from the creatures. If one of the creatures would find their base, all of them could attack the place.
The black creatures (Reapers) are the manifestation of brain-dead coma patients, who are trapped in the dream world. Their touch is infectious, and can turn their victims into brain-dead monsters. Conventional weapons hurt them, they might even kill them.
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Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
image © Kinokompania Bolshoye Kino & Fresh Film & Mars Media Entertainment & Gpm Kit (Gazprom)
Analysis of the story - Coma, movie (2019)
I mostly liked the story, I didn't find problems that would have prevented me from enjoying Coma.
The message of the story
I'm not sure there's one.
The structure of the story
The scenes of the Coma film are mostly played in sequence, but there are flashbacks, and the viewer is not always sure what do they see. It has the usual arc of the dramatic structure.
Things I liked
- I really liked all the side characters.
- I liked the look of the setting
- I liked the look of the creatures
Problematic elements
I didn't really like it that the creatures are the dreams of the brain dead coma patients, as brain dead are not able to dream. (Edit: Other reviewers said that they are the minds of the patients who want to wake up to get away from the dream world, and I find that more plausible. However, I'm almost sure they said brain dead in the version I've seen.)
The waking up process was a little convoluted, and it was hard for me to follow or believe.
Why can the pair just leave the institute in the end? Why don't they stop the pair? It's a pretty stupid choice on their part.
Unanswered questions
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Possibilities of improvement
How it could have been better?
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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?
I haven't seen any other works of the writers (Nikita Argunov, Aleksey Gravitskiy, Timofei Dekin), but I'm definitely interested in them.
This is the first film of the director (Nikita Argunov).
Koma / Coma, movie (2019)
image © Kinokompania Bolshoye Kino & Fresh Film & Mars Media Entertainment & Gpm Kit (Gazprom)
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Uses for the film - Coma, movie (2019)
Plot
- There's a shared world of dreams, that you can enter.
- People want to use a nice place for their own selfish needs.
- They want to use technology to live a full life in a world of dreams, instead of the real life.
Scenes
- The action scenes in the multi-level world of dreams all look amazing. They could be used to depict dream-world settings, or chaotic landscapes.
Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas
Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas
- There's a very important person that needs to be saved. A team of soldiers are sent to protect the VIP. There's a very powerful attacker who wants to kill the VIP. Use a long playing area. The VIP starts on the edge of the end, and has to reach the other end. The soldiers can be deployed on any edge of the playing area, in one group. The attacker starts in the middle of the playing area. The soldiers can slow the attacker, but only one has a self-detonating device that can destroy it. The soldiers win if they get out with the VIP, with half of their team alive. The attacker wins if the VIP is killed. It's a draw if more than half of the soldiers are killed.
- You can use rolling terrain, and play the game until they can get out of the line of sight of the attacker, or finally kill the attacker.
- It would be interesting to recreate the fights in multiple planes of gravity, probably with magnetic models.
Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)
The humans: Human-sized (S3) human civilians. Post-apocalyptic miniatures are good matches for them.
The creatures: Large humanoid creatures. WH40K Tyranid Warriors or Genestealers, or probably larger Alien models could be used as a base for conversion.
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Similar stories - Coma, movie (2019)
Novels
Nemes István (as Jeffrey Stone): The Dawn Trilogy (1991-1993): Adventures in a world of shared dreams.
H. P. Lovecraft: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927, published: 1943): Adventures in a world of shared dreams.
Graphic novels
Revolver (2010, by Matt Kindt): The protagonist tries to defeat the antagonist in multiple realities.
Movies
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987): Adventures in a world of dreams.
Inception (2010): Adventures in an artificially created world of shared dreams.
Re-cycle (2006): Adventures in a world of memories.
Source Code (2011): Adventures in a world of memories.
The Cell (2000): Adventures in a world of memories.
The Matrix (1999): Adventures in an artificially created world of shared dreams.
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Frequently asked questions - Coma, movie (2019)
Is this movie available with English audio dub?
Yes, there is an English dub for the Coma movie.
Is Coma film based on a book or comics?
No, Coma is not based on either books or comics.
Is there a post credit scene in Coma?
No, as far as I remember, there's no post credit scene in Coma.
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Resources - Coma, movie (2019)
Information
IMDB: Koma (I) (2019): Database article.
WikiPedia: Coma (2020 film): Database article.
WikiPedia: Кома_(фильм,_2020): Database article in Russian, with more information.
English version by Google Translate
Letterboxd: Coma 2019 ‘Кома’: Database article.
Rotten Tomatoes: Coma 2020: Database article.
Creation
Reviews with no spoilers - Sputnik film (2020)
Adrian Halen (for Horror News Net): Film Review: Coma (Koma) (2019): Review article about the Coma film with minor spoilers.
Cody Hamman (for Arrow in the Head): Coma (Sci Fi Movie Review): Review article about the Coma film with minor spoilers.
Derek Jacombs (for A Debt To Pleasure): Two Russian Films: Review article about the Sputnik film and Coma movie, with minor spoilers.
MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM: COMA (2019) (Dark Sky Films Blu-ray Review): Short review article about the Coma film with no spoilers. Includes review of the Blu-ray release.
Mr.Wolowitz (for Cinema Paradiso): Koma (2019) review (in Hungarian): Review article about the Coma film with no spoilers.
English version by Google Translate
Reviews with spoilers - Sputnik film (2020)
: Review article of the Sputnik movie, with spoilers. Includes a very detailed plot summary.
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Buying the product - Coma, movie (2019)
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Have you seen the Coma film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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