Review of the movie "Three"

In recent years, Ukrainian cinema has been boldly venturing into genres that previously seemed unattainable. Action-adventure is one of them. The trailer of The Three could promise scale, dynamics, and drive that is not inferior to Western models. But did the Ukrainian filmmakers really manage to create something of high quality and competition? Or perhaps the film was just another attempt to find their style in a genre where it is easy to fall into clichés?

“Three”

Director Ivan Kravchyshyn
Genre action, adventure, historical
Starring Artemiy Yegorov, Roman Yasinovsky, Yevhen Pidnepesnyi, and others.
Premiere August 21, 2025, cinemas

The film “Three” immediately strikes the viewer with its energetic start and an interesting idea that tries to combine Ukrainian action with dramatic notes of survival and friendship. From the very beginning, it is clear that the authors have tried to create a movie with a powerful message: the enemy is one and constant, and the real strength lies in mutual support and the right motives.

The idea is attractive, and in some moments the plot even looks fresh and intriguing, forcing the viewer to follow the events. However, the realization is a bit more complicated. The pace of the film is strange and jerky, the editing often pushes you to literally “grab onto anything” in order not to get lost in the plot, and because of this, the emotional impact is sometimes lost. The impression is that the authors wanted to squeeze as many events as possible into a short running time, but they did not always manage to clearly present the story and the relationships between the characters.

Sometimes you can notice something alive in the main characters, some intriguing features, but it is quickly lost because of the superficial writing. Here, you hate the antagonists not because of their cool writing, but because of their affiliation. Not to say that this is a big plus for the script, right? But here I would like to note that the creators at least tried to create their own local atmosphere of threat, and not just copy Western templates.

The music adds emotion and helps keep the pace, although some action scenes look cartoonish and unfinished, which detracts from the overall impression. The actors play well, without any outstanding performances, but they don’t fail in their roles either; in most cases, they simply serve as carriers of the plot, not its drivers.

I don’t want to criticize “Three” for everything at once because it is a completely logical step for Ukrainian cinema in the action-adventure genre. The idea is interesting, the attempt is ambitious, and some scenes look spectacular. But so far, we see typical mistakes for the first steps: a weak script, a strange pace and sometimes shoddy action scenes.

In the future, Ukrainian action films, especially historical ones, will definitely find their peak, and The Three can be seen as one of the important steps towards this. The film is worth watching because it shows that Ukrainian cinema is capable of more, even if it is not yet reaching its full potential.