Diabolik - Who Are You? 2023

Okay, let's start by saying that this movie is terrible. The positive thing is that I can reevaluate the first Diabolik, the one with Marinelli as the protagonist. Now I can finally see that the first film was on a completely different level from its sequels: the music, the acting, even the writing... everything was much better than what came after. Which is not much, but it's something.
"Diabolik, chi sei?" is the third chapter that concludes the franchise started by the Manetti Brothers in 2021. Many of the problems that made the second film terrible remain, and even seem amplified.
It starts bad. Like, very bad. The very first scene is what makes you painfully aware of what you are about to watch. Spoilers ahead: it's night, we follow a secretary who's coming back home after work. Someone's stalking her to her house, a big and very distracting modern-looking building. The music implies danger ahead, horror even. The secretary is about to open the weird door to her flat when she suddenly hears muffled cries. The startled secretary follows the cries and finally sees a woman in a long white dress, completely covered in blood. Secretary gets kidnapped and we of course find out it was just Eva Kant disguised as a bloody woman (she even used a mask. She could have used just makeup, but no, it was a mask), while Diabolik was following the secretary all along. All of this for a couple of informations for their next heist. OKAY?! I was perplexed by this scene, it made no sense. There wasn't a less theatrical way of kidnapping this woman? Like, was it a reference to Carrie or some other horror film that I don't know of? Was Eva so fucking bored that decided to put on all this drama?? WHY??? I don't know, but that's how the movie starts. It doesn't get better.
Let me tell you one of the most obvious problems: the casting. Monica Bellucci as Altea... I mean, she can barely act, but her performance is made even worse by that fake ghastly accent given to her character. The dialogues don't help, they sound old-fashioned, exaggerated, stuff I would never have read even in the first 100 issues of Diabolik, which make the efforts of the actors in the scenes that have a little more depth (I'm talking above all about the confrontation between Ginko and Diabolik) ridiculous.
Yes, let's talk about the (in)famous confrontation. Diabolik and Ginko are finally face to face in a very dangerous situation from which, they think, neither of them will come out alive. In the comics this scene comes after many episodes of heists and escapes. Both characters are frustrated by each other: Diabolik because the intelligent Ginko is more and more able to understands how he thinks; Ginko because Diabolik is somehow always ahead of him.
In the film there's nothing. Nothing comes out of this scene besides the flashback. NOTHING. Mastandrea does what he can with what he has (a bad script, an expressionless counterpart), but Giannotti... Oh boy, Giannotti. You know, I never thought I would miss Marinelli's performance as a borderline psychotic Diabolik. He looked and acted like Hannibal Lecter, but you know, at least he gave me something. Giannotti here's is terrible. He has no chemistry with Mastandrea, he offers no sense of mystery, of danger... nothing. He literally talks like he just got out of bed after a night of passionate sex, and that's it. He looks and act like an underwear model more than an ingenious criminal. It's terrible, I cringed.

Yeah, this film is a flop. It's also now set in the 70s (I don't rememeber the first movie having a very historical setting), icluding 70s prominent themes like nudity, sex, murder, crime fiction... It definitely feels like I'm watching an episode of "L'ispettore Coliandro" (a crime fiction directed by Manetti Brothers) rather than a Diabolik installment.
I'm sure is much different from what the Giussani had in mind when they created Diabolik: he was supposed to be a refined criminal with very specific ethics and morals, bending only to his lifelong partner Eva Kant, respecting Ginko despite loathing the law. What remains of this refined character here?

Oh well, maybe next time and maybe not my Manetti Brothers, right?