The Serpent (2020 film)

The Serpent is a 2020 American action film written, directed and produced by Gia Skova, who also stars in the film. It revolves around a CIA special agent who is set up by her own agency. The cast also includes Travis Aaron Wade, Craig Conway, Jason Scott Jenkins, Nigel Vonas and Jason Burril.

Critical response to the film was overwhelmingly negative.

Plot
Lucinda Kavsky is a secret agent who works for the CIA. She is sent to China by her organization to be part of a biological experiment that could extend human life. However, when she gets there she is trapped by the agency, who attempts to kill her. She escapes and uncovers an international plot. Seeking revenge and retribution she takes out her enemies one by one.

Cast

 * Gia Skova as Lucinda Kavsky
 * Travis Aaron Wade as Detective Franklin
 * Nigel Vonas as Pierce
 * Kristhoper Graves as Gerry
 * Richard E. Wilson as CIA director Gozby
 * Akihiro Kitamura as Dr. Lee
 * Alexandra Tebano as Gozby's wife
 * Violet Heath as Avy

Production
The Serpent was partially filmed on location in Los Angeles. The film is Gia Skova's directorial debut.

Release
The Serpent premiered in Dubai on January 4, 2020 at Novo Cinemas IMG but was only distributed in 2021 by Vertical Entertainment in Canada and the United States, where it premiered in June that year.

Reception
A review at RogerEbert.com criticized the film's extreme lack of continuity and called it "a start-to-finish train wreck, a laughable piece of 'cinema' made by people who really have no business making movies." The review cited as an example a scene purportedly set in New York, but filmed in front of the Los Angeles Theater with the marquee bearing the building's name fully visible to the viewer and concluded, "If The Serpent proves anything, it's that Russian ladies can make lousy action movies too."

Another extremely negative review, at RogerMoore's movie Nation, ironically commented, "Perhaps there’s a drinking game in this? Take a shot every time her character grabs a gun, take two shots every time she fiddles with her hair?" and considered the film contained "the worst car chase in film history".

The website Girls with Guns also criticized the confused script: "The action is no great shakes, except for one sequence where she is helping a doctor remove one of the chips from Avy (Heath) a subject she has rescured, when her phone is tracked to the hospital and an assault launched. The resulting battle is... Well, realism isn’t its strong suit, shall we say?"

A review at Blu-Ray.com commented, "The Serpent gets around to gunplay and showdowns, including a medical clinic siege where Lucinda is tasked with mowing down a special forces unit, going full Rambo in the process. Of course it’s ridiculous, but I don’t think Skova really cares, gifting herself a chance to become a major force of violence and heroism, possibly paying for the privilege herself. Take it seriously, and The Serpent will likely trigger an aneurysm. It’s such an editorial ball of mush with all sorts of lame DTV moves, but it does work, in a way, as a Bad Movie Night Option." The film was described as "nonsensical", "incomprehensible", a reviewer at ParentsPreviews confessing, "Ordinarily, I start reviews with a quick plot synopsis. That is functionally impossible here."

Other independent reviews were also quite negative,  one reviewer going as far as to state that "The dialogues of this film are very meme-worthy because the lines remind me a lot of The Room. The conversations sounded like they were written by Google translate. This film will be very successful if it is marketed as a comedy because of the parody vibes it has going on. I had seen porn with better acting than this movie but the bad acting is part of its charm."

Sequel and videogame announcement
Skova announced that there were plans for a sequel and that she had closed an agreement for the development of a videogame based on her film.