Adeel Hail
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
banem2
Unlike some comments, I think the effects in this movie are extraordinary, especially the church and dinner scenes, and I cannot remember when I saw such in any movie recently. And it keeps going throughout the whole movie (including complete scenery in whole movie!). The kid in you will watch it mouth open!Unfortunately, for some reason, someone has decided to dub the movie into English since it is originally in Russian and this was done quite poor. I was watching it on the movie channel and I was not sure what is wrong with the tone until I found out this is Russian movie which was dubbed (I am against dubbing)... And I am looking to watch the original version.If you like this type of movies (fantasy), you will have 2 quality hours of full enjoyment!
Dark Jedi
This movie is probably quite unknown by most people. I certainly had never heard of it when I stumbled on it. It is a quite entertaining little fantasy / supernatural / crime movie though. I am actually not sure what to classify at as. It starts of as a fantasy movie but is it really? The cinematics of this movie is very good. For me it was the main part contributing to the enjoyment. The small world of these villagers is cinematically beautiful, dirty and gritty at the same time. The characters themselves with their enormous moustaches and weirdly cut hair are great. The special effects will perhaps not win any awards but they were good nonetheless. I especially liked the transformation scene during the meal somewhere in the middle of the movie.The story is a bit of a roller coaster ride and sometimes it felt a bit disjointed. It was not really obvious why one scene or event was followed by another at all times. But then, taking into account the later events in the movie it was perhaps meant to be a bit disjointed and "dreamy" and I have to confess that I was extremely tired when watching this movie.The ending was a bit of a surprise. This is where the movie kind of went from a fantasy movie to more of a crime story. I have to say that I did not really see that coming until it was about to fall in my lap.There are definitely worse ways of spending two hours in the evening, especially if you like movies that are not the typical mainstream Hollywood fare.
Y.t. Whitemansson
This movie didn't reach my countries cinemas, even though it's just a country away from the old SSSR. They don't tend to show Russian films in my homeland (although 'Stalingrad' was shown during some festival), so i had to pirate a bluray release to finally see the film. First of all, i must address, mostly negative comments that I've noticed, coming from Russia and the region. One aspect of that negativity came from the notion that this movie, doesn't follow or respect Nikolay Gogol's story or the eponymous 1967 film. There is truth in this (although some motifs are repeated, like 'all women are witches' stuff, and 'scientist-philosopher' babble), story is restructured and changed, almost entirely ignoring central theme of Gogol's tale, which is fear, deathly fear. That brings me to the second aspect of negative reactions, which claims that the movie isn't scary. Not scary as 1967 film. Well, what can I say except that that's also true. This film is not a horror, and trailer gives false impression that it is.One thing that is not true though is comparison of this film with Tim Burton's 'Sleepy Hollow'. Resemblance is only superficial, this film doesn't share Tim Burton's mixture of violent horror and morbid humor, although there's plenty of humor in this film, performance of some actors is almost entirely in comedic fashion.So, what this film actually is, is a funny horror fantasy. 12+, a family horror, something like this would never be approved for production in the Hollywoods. If they even decide to distribute it there, film is probably facing cutting, like the fate of unfortunate 'Snowpiercer'.Even the 1967 film was marked with comedic performances, so I don't see what the fuss is about, as for the plot, plot is not weak, it's chaotic, especially the ending, which only adds to the overall charming film. Film doesn't resemble Hollywood productions as some claim, most noticeable is respect that this films has for all characters, there's no cannon fodder characters which is a disgusting standard in Hollywood works.As for the special effects, they vary through the film. For instance, cgi dove is visibly fake in two scenes, while the scenes of breakfast with Cossacks if fantastic. There's cgi, prosthetic, even beautiful stop motion (update: no stop-mo, it's animatronics)This is only one of three movies that I really liked this year and I watch them plenty. Other two are 'The zero theorem' and 'The anchorman 2'. Seriously, this movie is special, the fact that Jonathan's dialogs look like they're from an 17-nth century adventure story, or the overall superstition and fear of everything, or the religious tones eastern style, film feels unique.Also, you should check 1967 'Viy'. It's super.
Ionut Lucian Achiricioaei
The movie is filled with symbols you can read them well if you pay close attention, also the movie is charged with morale stories. Sometimes it is required your full attention in order to extract the idea.The only drawback is that sometimes the story doesn't connect very well like the scene with the ogres, something that maybe want's to be surreal or an influence from the evil forces, a dream state that has the opposite effect on our protagonist. The movie has an original look that is one step away from the Hollywood typology. The effects look well with minor observations, the movie want's to be a horror movie but it isn't, it's a dark fantasy with religious themes. It s worth to mention that the budget was only 26 million and the results are spectacular for this amount.
