THE once-prosperous EndoBank has degenerated into a data processing centre when evil and hirsute Dr Menkoff and his henchpersons red-haired Svetlana (Olga Makeeva, who also coached the actors playing Russian characters in mastering the accent) and blond Karpov (Malcolm Kennard) arrive to take over the firm’s coding department and, in time, the firm itself.

Fighting the good fight to save the firm and its employees, rendered into a state of automata after drinking from the office water cooler, are coder David (Lachlan Woods), former CEO Clive (Robert Taylor) and the inevitable pretty girl Ruby (Jessica Clarke). David has a consuming ambition. He’s anxious to find a Japanese publisher for the manga cartoon book on which he has been working for yonks.

There’s a market for manga, its angular, spiky drawing style loved by Japanese of all ages, telling violent stories spattered with intimations of eroticism that never breach the borders of indecency.

David Parker, who three decades ago wrote and filmed that memorable Australian comedy “Malcolm”, this time directs to a screenplay by Zac Gillam whose first feature this is following a plethora of shorts.

There are indeed good things in “The Menkoff Method”. Noah Taylor plays despicable, obviously crazy Menkoff with style. David Whitely goes to market overplaying zombified Endo Bank executive Curry, whose surprise ending is perhaps the film’s most comical moment.

The film evokes the sparse visual style of magna. It’s not difficult to see where director Parker was taking the film’s intentions. But it’s unlikely to find general favour among that wide audience that doesn’t slake its cultural thirst on manga. Because it’s boring.

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