As a biggest fan of "Otvorena Vrata" and it's first season, the news of fresh episodes stroke me as lightning~ Not only was i ecstatic about a new season, but knowing that the entire original cast will be engaged again was even more thrilling... finally! I even got the chance to visit the set back in February and see where the magic is made. And so, "Otvorena Vrata" came again into our lives, a series that was a benchmark in 1990s Serbia, and the brightest spot on state TV. Impressions? The coffee got cold, very cold and tasteless...
So, what went wrong? True, the cast is there, though it seems years have done their share. A very respectable group of actors got older and most of them lost their kick. It's no wonder though~ The original series were filmed 17-18 years back. Lane Gutovic, Bogdan Diklic, Vlasta Vlaisavljevic... they were all shining very bright back in the day, but alas, that day has long passed buy. On the other hand, Vesna Trivalic was always a horrible untalented actress, with the only exception of original "Otvorena Vrata", where her age and charisma compensated. Similar story goes for Nikola Djuricko. His role as Vojkan may have suited him perfectly back in 1994., but definitely not today. Performance of the two in this new series is quite poor. In short, some of the cast pushed their best effort and kinda failed, whilst the other never had any material to begin with~ All this adds up to a very iffy acting performance, nowhere even close the first season.
Second big issue is the visual outlook~ Frame, directing and editing resemble more to a commercial than comedy. You could easily mistake "Otvorena Vrata 2" with a promo video for banks, insurance companies and so on. It looks decent, but highly inappropriate for something which should not be commercial in it's essence. Finally, there is the script. I can't say it's bad~ Biljana Srbljanovic still kept some of her original karma, and yet, it seems as a deja-vu of and simply doesn't deliver that message it used to. The whole new series looks like a parody of it's old self.
To sum up~ there are some funny, witty moments and occasional decent performances, however, compared to the original series, "Otvorena Vrata 2" is a very poor photocopy on a low ink printer. The 5 points go only and only for the sake of passed glamor and old fame.
So, what went wrong? True, the cast is there, though it seems years have done their share. A very respectable group of actors got older and most of them lost their kick. It's no wonder though~ The original series were filmed 17-18 years back. Lane Gutovic, Bogdan Diklic, Vlasta Vlaisavljevic... they were all shining very bright back in the day, but alas, that day has long passed buy. On the other hand, Vesna Trivalic was always a horrible untalented actress, with the only exception of original "Otvorena Vrata", where her age and charisma compensated. Similar story goes for Nikola Djuricko. His role as Vojkan may have suited him perfectly back in 1994., but definitely not today. Performance of the two in this new series is quite poor. In short, some of the cast pushed their best effort and kinda failed, whilst the other never had any material to begin with~ All this adds up to a very iffy acting performance, nowhere even close the first season.
Second big issue is the visual outlook~ Frame, directing and editing resemble more to a commercial than comedy. You could easily mistake "Otvorena Vrata 2" with a promo video for banks, insurance companies and so on. It looks decent, but highly inappropriate for something which should not be commercial in it's essence. Finally, there is the script. I can't say it's bad~ Biljana Srbljanovic still kept some of her original karma, and yet, it seems as a deja-vu of and simply doesn't deliver that message it used to. The whole new series looks like a parody of it's old self.
To sum up~ there are some funny, witty moments and occasional decent performances, however, compared to the original series, "Otvorena Vrata 2" is a very poor photocopy on a low ink printer. The 5 points go only and only for the sake of passed glamor and old fame.
