Just to be frank about it: I could not force myself to watch it to the end, bored and disgusted got out somewhere about 2/3. And, just to clarify things, I actually enjoyed a lot of bad, modern Russian movies seriously lacking historical credibility like Rzev, T-34 and many more.
But this one, it's a clear no-go. It resembles a soviet-style history book: uncomfortable facts buried so deep that even with a microscope you cannot see them, a plot making no sense whatsoever and told with a subtlety of a Stalin-era propaganda speech. Hell, even Fortress of War, full of historic lies and bad heroism, was much better.
Within first five minutes I was taken aback by the behavior of the "firefighter hero" whose masculinity would make Arnold Schwarzenegger run for cover. His deeds (the firefighter's, not Arnie's), on a scala from 1 to 10 of alpha-male-toxic-masculinity land somewhere between 15 and 20. Then it only got worse. I'm only writing this review because I could actually see some "not terrible" comments. That is WRONG. This movie sets a new standard for "How not to make a historic-like movie".
At the moment this movie is only available in Netflix Russia, Latvia, Lithuanian and Georgia. That's a serious mistake. All the world should see, what a best-of-the-best Russian male stereotype, a superhero, wet dream of Russian ladies looks like. A caveman in comparison would seem like a gentle, sensible partner. Trying to imagine a person behaving this way in any modern, civilized city of the West made me speechless. Not any time after 1968 could this possibly be anywhere close to passable.
Last but not least: The HBO miniseries shines even stronger with this... malfunction of filming in comparison. If that is supposed to be the official, Russian answer to the HBO production, touted by the great GRUshnik Putin himself, well, what can I say. Everybody should (try to) see that...
But this one, it's a clear no-go. It resembles a soviet-style history book: uncomfortable facts buried so deep that even with a microscope you cannot see them, a plot making no sense whatsoever and told with a subtlety of a Stalin-era propaganda speech. Hell, even Fortress of War, full of historic lies and bad heroism, was much better.
Within first five minutes I was taken aback by the behavior of the "firefighter hero" whose masculinity would make Arnold Schwarzenegger run for cover. His deeds (the firefighter's, not Arnie's), on a scala from 1 to 10 of alpha-male-toxic-masculinity land somewhere between 15 and 20. Then it only got worse. I'm only writing this review because I could actually see some "not terrible" comments. That is WRONG. This movie sets a new standard for "How not to make a historic-like movie".
At the moment this movie is only available in Netflix Russia, Latvia, Lithuanian and Georgia. That's a serious mistake. All the world should see, what a best-of-the-best Russian male stereotype, a superhero, wet dream of Russian ladies looks like. A caveman in comparison would seem like a gentle, sensible partner. Trying to imagine a person behaving this way in any modern, civilized city of the West made me speechless. Not any time after 1968 could this possibly be anywhere close to passable.
Last but not least: The HBO miniseries shines even stronger with this... malfunction of filming in comparison. If that is supposed to be the official, Russian answer to the HBO production, touted by the great GRUshnik Putin himself, well, what can I say. Everybody should (try to) see that...