Best movie of this year hands down!

Overrated and overhyped

hyped garbage

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The reason Mikhalkov's film became Russia's worst box office flop is obvious. It is a very bad movie. It has a stupid script, useless scenes of violence, gore and defecation. It has bad acting, discontinuity and retcon. All of the characters that were presumed dead since the first film are there, alive, and surprisingly changed their age.The acting is terrible, all actors except Menshikov are copying Mikhalkov's manner of raving, mumbling and gabbling. They are hysterical all the way, they never seem to calm down. They scream and shout when they need not to.Another reason for the film to fail is that it offended the feelings of Russians. It shows their army as a pack of hysterical idiots who shoot and blast each other. In the same time, it portrays invading Wehrmacht as kind and cheery boys. Germans don't seem to be there to fight and conquer, they only return fire when attacked by those crazy russkies. Any violence from Nazi troops is always provoked by Russians.It is surprising that some in the West consider this movie a Russian patriotic propaganda. In Russia itself it is clearly viewed as anti-patriotic. The movie dishonors Russian army, it exaggerates the role of penal battalions packed with former political prisoners, and downplays the role of the ordinary Red Army units. It shows Russian generals as drunkards, their Supreme Commander as a psycho, and the Red Army as a gang without any discipline or subordination.In this film, Russians seem not to fight Germans, but trying to die by any means. In the second part of the film, Stalin even directly orders to LOSE MORE SOLDIERS in action. Oh, these Stalin, he's sooo eeeevil, and hates his own army more than Nazi do. Overall, the movie doesn't work even as anti-Stalin propaganda, because no viewer can believe such stupidity.Still, after all, one may find the film amusing, because it has so many stupid and ridiculous scenes that make it worth watching. See a Nazi air fighter defecating on a Russian ship; see Stalin having his face dipped into cake; a German tank crew giving chocolates to Russian soldiers; a scout leader pissing his pants; a nurse stripping before dying soldier who have never seen woman's breast; see Christ Magic as an Orthodox priest brings down German attack plane with his prayer... The film is so bad that it's good. Mikhalkov could make a hilarious parody of war films - unfortunately, his movie pretends to be a serious drama.

Those who rated only 1 to 3 star this move, shame on you. They were probably expecting some Hollywood trash like Inglourious Bastards with lots of special effects and some video game feeling. I have seen the Russian version of the film, didn't quite understand the dialogs, but even couldn't stop viewing it. This was an amazingly good movie, excellent actors (real actors and not media hyped celebrities) probably not as good as the first one, but still much better than most highly rated Hollywood production on WWII.Russian films on WWII seem to me more credible, more human, probably because they don't feel the need to justify ans explain themselves and their leaders.

Utomlyonnye solntsem 2: Predstoyanye (Burnt by the Sun: Anticipation) is the sequel to Nikita Mikhalkov's exceptional 1994 period drama about Stalin's political repressions in the 1930s. However, a lot of water has passed under the bridge in 15 years and the poignancy of the original is certainly lost here.This film follows the struggles of the repressed Kotov family and the man who is responsible for their plight through the Soviet theater of WW2. The plot is neither simple enough to be called a drama nor expansive enough to be an epic. Instead its a picaresque flow of vignettes reminiscent of a play - the majority of scenes have retained the original film's intimacy, with few actors on screen at the same time.In terms of direction I was impressed in places, though mostly by technical skill rather than revelatory plot devices or subtle acting. The restrained use of sound effects and music that worked so well in the first film is definitely one of this sequel's redeeming features.On a less positive note, I was exasperated by the treatment of suffering Mikhalkov offers his audience - many characters spend their entire screen time whimpering, crying or cowering in the rubble - not exactly the Tears and Glory that many have come to expect from the genre. We can only hope the Glory will come in the third film (we are, after all, in Anticipation).As an actor Nikita Mikhalkov is accomplished and energetic as always, but the show is easily stolen by Sergei Makovetsky, gingerly portraying a sympathetic SMERSH officer stuck in a catch 22, as well as Mikhalkov's promising daughter Nadya as a tormented young Pioneer lost in the landscape of war. I should note that Makovetsky recently starred in the considerably more engaging WW2 saga "The Priest" and is on something of a roll lately.Despite the overall quality of the cast the direction takes an unusual approach to a number of performers - Dmitriy Dyuzhev of Brigada fame, for example, spends the entire film whimpering unconvincingly - something he was obviously never designed for. Oleg Menshikov, a fine period actor many will know for playing Yerast Fandorin in 'Statski Sovetnik", is no more or less wooden than grandma's kitchen ladle - it seems Mikhalkov was simply uninterested in engaging this actor.Considering how much money was spent, production values are quite low in places - props often seem lonely on battlefields and costumes lack imagination. Perhaps most of it went to the actors that managed to cozy up to this lucrative gig... In any case, a number of scenes feel cheap and give the entire production an air of inconsistency.Last but not least, it would be a shame not to mention Mikhalkov's own fate. Most foreigners will be unaware of the fact that in the 15 years since the release of the original movie, Mikhalkov has become a close friend and associate of a leader himself accused of political repression - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. I would have no qualms with this ordinarily, assuming that all the funds his efforts raised were spent making great movies. Unfortunately, Mikhalkov's tenure as figurehead of Russia's film industry did not produce many quality films. Certainly, none by Mikhalkov himself.The bottom line: a sequel unworthy of its predecessor in almost every way, but good enough to own on DVD or watch with the family.

As everyone already knows this is the most expensive movie made in Russia. So I was expecting some good story and visual effects. But what we got was something awful. There is no story in the movie, it's more like "let's show them that scene, now let's show them this scene" and the connection between scenes is really unnatural. This movie is anti-historical. There were no "shtrafbat" in 1941, there were no German tanks under sails, Stalin was not looking like a zombie etc etc. And another thing is, that Red Army did fight against Germans, but for some reason Nikita Mikhalkov is showing us that Soviet Army is a bunch of scared and unorganized people. if things were like that Germans would have taken over Moscow in 41. Some of the scenes of this movie are so ridiculous that I do not even want to talk about them. For example, the scene where German shooter wants to s**t right out of a flying plane. That is impossible and you can't move your plot by creating impossible situations.So, in conclusion, I would like to say that it is unpatriotic, stupid, anti-historical movie with very poor visual effects. Do not watch