Cosmoball Review: An Exciting Animated Space Sport

Release date: March 23, 2021 (Physical and Digital Release)
Running time: 119 minutes
Starring: Evgeniy Mironov (Spacewalk, The Lenin Factor, Space Dogs), Evgeniy Romantsov (Petropolis, Nu), Viktoriya Agalakova (The Bride, Mermaid: The Lake of the Dead, Rasputin), Maria Lisovaya (Guests) and newcomer Ivan Ivanovich
Director: Dzhanik Fayziev

Cosmoball takes place after an intergalactic battle that destroys Earth’s moon and causes worldwide devastation, leaving the human race desolate and clinging to survival. The film follows four athletes with the rare ability to teleport, which makes them the only humans capable of playing “cosmoball,” a dangerous sport requiring unimaginable speed, reflexes, and courage. While the rest of the world religiously scans the sky to catch the high-flying tournaments, no one suspects that with each match, they are actually witnessing four young humans fighting furiously to ensure the survival of humankind.

Cosmoball's most noticeable aspect is its stunning special effects.  The film has some top notch animation that blends real and animated footage into a seamless world.  It is really well done and keeps you engaged in this sci fi epic.  The actors all do a great job in this, seamlessly existing along with their sci-fi, computer-generated sidekicks.  And this style lets the world have some crazy effects.  Cosmoball is a crazy game with teleportation, fast action, and big explosions, all of which are recreated seamlessly.  And overall the story is a fun one, with a charismatic main character Anton, a new and extremely skilled Cosmoball player.  His journey is fun to watch and his hesitation to play and childlike wonder is fun to see.  His teammates are a diverse group that add some additional excitement and variety to the cast.  They come together as a great cohesive team and are a lot of fun to see on stage.  

However, Cosmoball is an exciting epic hat has a story to match, but this story doesn't really make much sense.  It leads to some really beautiful locales and effects, but it also just doesn't come together to make the film more than an entertaining piece of science fiction eye candy.  Maybe these are based more on Russian tales and culture, so it will play better in that region, but for me the story just didn't hit.  And although Cosmoball was the main sport in the film, I still didn't really understand much about it.  It was tough to follow, although it was fun to watch at least.  Cosmoball has a mostly light-hearted story and is a visual epic, but if you're hoping for a coherent story then you might be disappointed.  Thankfully I was just hoping for a fun movie and Cosmoball did not disappoint!

Cosmoball is a light-hearted, visually stunning space adventure with great special effects around an exciting, high-stakes game. 

Rent it.

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Cosmoball is available on Blu-ray and digitally on March 23, 2021. 

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