ridiculous rating

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Bolshevik propaganda: the comparison between 1921's Russia, and a capitalistic planet Mars. Engineer Los is building a spaceship to reach Mars. He is in love with Aelita, the regent, who he met in his dreams. In real life, his wife Natacha takes care of refugees.One of the earliest full-length films about space travel, the most notable part of the film remains its remarkable constructivist Martian sets and costumes designed by Aleksandra Ekster. Their influence can be seen in a number of later films, including the Flash Gordon serials and probably Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and "Woman in the Moon".For any science fiction fan, this is a must-see. It is not the first by any means... George Melies was already on top of that from day one. But as noted, these costumes and sets go above and beyond what we expect from early films. You would think 1920s Russia would have better things to invest in, but maybe this was used to plant some ideas in the people's heads.

Aelita: Queen of Mars is many things at once. It is an avant-garde science fiction thriller and a rather unoriginal romance. It is a glorification of soviet ideals and a glimpse into the life of Muscovites in post-civil-war Russia. All of these seemingly disparate themes fuse to form a film is at times painfully slow and at others positively captivating. To watch Aelita is to navigate a convoluted maze of subplots. In Moscow, where most of the film takes place, the audience is passed among a few settings, where we primarily watch the growing jealousy of the protagonist Loss, whose wife is being wooed by Ehrlich, a man whose gluttonous yearning for the exploitive excesses of pre-Soviet Russia exposes him as the principal villain. The monotony of the mundane and often superfluous scenes in Moscow is broken, however, by the truly innovative sequences on Mars, filled with constructivist geometry and elaborate costumes. The Martian society is a highly imaginative representation of pre-Soviet oppression, depicting with artistic visual effects a ruling echelon enjoying the fruits of the labor of a cave- dwelling working class. The condition of the workers and the futuristic aesthetic are instantly recognizable as significant influences on the later milestone picture Metropolis. Even with its original and artful contributions, Aelita is not without cheap thrills. Along with original depictions of a dystopian alien society, viewers are treated to the passionate kisses of a naïve Aelita and footage of camels in the Sahara, forced images facilitated by the plot device of the telescope with which the Martians surveil Earth. Granted, to the average Russian in 1924, a desert caravan was nearly as exotic as a Martian queen, but it holds little persisting value or influence.In the end, of course, the film is a clear, but thankfully not overbearing, glorification of the Soviet ideal. The Muscovite characters are committed to building the new state, and in his martian daydream–if indeed it is a daydream–Loss leads a workers' revolt to form the Martian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a muscular proletarian sheds his shackles to forge the hammer and sickle. Its 111 minutes can get very long, but Aelita is certainly a film worth watching.

Having seen so many early movies pushing the communist agenda, I have tired a bit. To be fair, it was certainly creative of the filmmaker to use the science fiction genre and space travel to make a point. The characters represent either the old ways or the new. There is a comfort in being the ruling class and prospering on the backs of the disenfranchised. The Martians are dealing with the same thing. They seem to have devices to watch the earth and keep what is going on a secret. Until love forces things out in the open. The images are interesting curiosities of the time. I had never heard of this film and when I saw the title I thought it was one of those schlock films of the fifties. It is interesting, though slow moving. I was amazed when the wife got shot but, of course, we find out later that things aren't quite as they appear. See it just to get an idea of the type of film being made.

Although it gets billed as a front for Soviet propaganda, this film seems to be outstanding in relationship to the time it wasmade and its phenomenal use of set design and productionvalues. As just a piece of visual decoration it stands as a faradvanced futuristic film in comparison to that red hot-pantsjunker METROPOLIS -- which owes a deeper, (or at least equal)debt to Russian constructivist design then to its GermanExpressionist roots. AELITA is one of the most seductive andrich films in silent cinema --if you can get past the deadendstoryline and plot development--which should never interruptWATCHING a film.