Amateur movie with Big budget

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

JACK FROST is another snowbound Russian fairy tale with an interesting, occasionally perplexing storyline to keep you intrigued throughout. The tale is about a pair of young lovers who have to contend with an evil old witch who decides to make their lives hell. The girl is mistreated by her family while the boy is assaulted by a mysterious mushroom-headed magician and turned into a human bear.If that sounds all rather odd then it is, but in the best Russian tradition. I do like the atmosphere of these films and the sheer amount of effort having gone into the special effects and action sequences. The mystical, snow-covered landscape is very well realised here and subsequently the film has a strong visual look to it. Scenes of the characters being attacked by living trees and the titular character using magic to cover the land in snow are great fun, if you can overlook the inherent cheesiness and bad dubbing.

First off, I'm an American & I only know this movie from MST3K.But that said, I think the film on its own is not a bad movie at all. Sure, it seems to be pure weirdsville from a modern, Western perspective but that's part of it's charm. This was based on old Russian lore & folktales and retains the odd & sometimes morbid elements of Old World folk & fairy tales.True, this was shown on MST3K, which usually pokes fun at bad or ridiculous movies. However this is not a bad movie, just one that comes off a bit wacky to those not familiar with the conventions of old fantasy folk tales & mythology. It was nonetheless a hilarious episode but the movie itself is very enjoyable on its own.It's a whimsical, magical story with lots of bright colors & plenty of humor (much of it hilariously slapstick). To outsiders, it has elements of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty with a healthy dose of Yuletide (in the Pre-Christian sense).There are some seriously silly moments, too...This movie's take on Baba Yaga (The folkloric Eastern European cannibalistic old witch...dubbed the 'Hunchback Fairy' in the 'Jack Frost' version, which is pretty dorky) is a scream! I swear, she looks & reminds me so much of Witchie-poo from "H.R. Pufnstuf"...she's just so wacky! Her army of anthropomorphic trees are just as silly (and 'Pufnstuf'-like)...as is her house with bird legs (from the actual Baba Yaga folklore).Of course, there's the "classic fairytale romance" involving an absolutely angelic young gal and an exuberant young man whom must overcome his proud, conceited, braggart ways. There's Morozko, "Mr. Jack Frost", himself. He is the embodiment of Winter as well as a sort of Santa Claus type figure. You have the nasty stepmother & stepsister and the kindly, but diminutive and totally spineless & kowtowed father. There's Baba Yaga & a bunch of goofy, gnome-like bandits. Then, there's Father Mushroom...whose a class all his own.I think folks are hard on this movie. It's unusual but it's not "Gigli" or "Plan 9 From Outer Space" material. It's a strange (to modern & western perspective), whimsical bit of Old Worldliness. If you dig Old World folk tale stuff with magic, whimsy, comical cannibal witches, evil step-family members, Old Man Winter, bandits, a fairytale romance & a funny little mushroom guy, this flick is for you! Just enjoy a bit of culture, turn off your left-brain, grab some popcorn, relax & just enjoy the show.And CHEEZE-LOUISE...If an American like myself can enjoy & appreciate it on its own merits (and not just because MST3K riffed it to hilarious effect), so can you. There's more to planet Earth than a certain 236 year old, 50 state country. C'mon! THINK BIG!

First, as many of the folks who have reviewed this movie have seen it on Mystery Science Theater, I'd like to make an important point about the MST3K version of this film, and MST3K itself.Like many other reviewers, I too saw this movie on MST3K. MST3K was a brilliant series, intelligent and well executed. Most of the movies that were featured on the show were films that would otherwise never have been watched by future generations. The fact that they were chosen for the express purpose of being mocked, unfortunately, has created a sort of conundrum for fans of the show, and the show itself.What a lot of folks don't understand, I think, is that the people who worked on MST3K were movie fans, plain and simple. They were fans of cinema in general, bad AND good. Now, bad versus good is not a binary system; there is a certain quality of film that makes it "so bad it's good." Then, of course, there are the movies that are simply bad. However, the fact that a movie is inflicted on the residents of the Satellite of Love does not in and of itself make the movie a bad one of either variety. This is an issue that plagues many of the reviews on this site of movies featured on the show, and frankly, it bewilders me.It seems that many MST3K fans or casual viewers are completely unable to separate their own perceptions and opinions of the movies featured there from the idea that, simply due to the fact that those movies were "mocked" by MST3K, they are "bad movies." While a good many reviewers are able to make this distinction, and form their own opinions about MST3K featured movies, for some reason the brilliance of this remarkable, beautifully shot Russian folk tale has completely evaded them too.Quite a few of the movies shown on MST were foreign films, where certain cultural elements were sure to go over the heads of most Americans. But I don't think that is the case here. Americans are quite capable of watching movies that aren't CGI laden or "realistic" (I'm glad that some folks made reference to The Wizard of Oz when reviewing this movie, because that was the first thing that came to mind while watching it). I just think that many of them have formed blocks in their minds against this particular film for two reasons: One, as I said above, simply due to the fact that it was featured on MST; and two, to be perfectly frank, because it is a Russian production.Americans have a peculiar relationship with Russia; many of us who grew up during the Cold War or during the Reagan years (a slightly warmer but no less tense version of the Cold War) were fed massive amounts of anti-Russian propaganda, taught using the spectre of nuclear holocaust to fear and hate. However, not all Americans have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by such doctrine; despite appearances, many of us are able to distinguish fact from fiction and look back through American history only to find it full of xenophobic hysteria covering many ethnicities and nationalities. We recognise that Russia was just another victim of this country's strange need to establish a political villain in the form of another country or ethnicity (see the Middle East).This mentality is at least part of the reason why, I think, Jack Frost (Morozko) has resulted in such oddly scathing reviews. Despite its consistently beautiful photography, fascinating characters (all of whom, as in every single American (or Americanized) fairy/folk tale, are caricatures--the Handsome Prince, the Wicked Stepmother/Stepsister, The Fairy Godmother/Godfather, etc.), the reviewers of this movie seem unable to do two things: separate their own opinions from the fact that the film was featured on MST, and overcome their prejudices and recognise that, if nothing else, this movie proves that every culture has something in common with ours.If this movie doesn't demonstrate that fact to you, I don't know what will. Look past the dubbing and the babushkas and you'll find an amalgam of tales that Americans have heard all their lives. Of course, the fact of the matter is that American literature has adapted these classic folk tales from other cultures and passed them off as our own. Nonetheless, these tales are staples of American culture. Morozko is many of those stories (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, among others) rolled into one fascinating movie. Personally I found this movie even more interesting than the American tales which ironically have borrowed from it so freely.I've read reviews for almost every movie that MST3K ever featured, and see the same thing over and over again--so many reviewers refuse to view the movie on its own merits and instead allow the admittedly brilliant and hilarious comments of Joel/Mike & the bots to form their opinions for them. I've enjoyed many of the movies I've seen on MST on their own merits, and this is one of them. I just wish more MST3K fans would do as the very writers and producers of the show themselves did and allow themselves to love the very movies that they mock.

It's amazing how much emotion this movie has caused on IMDb. Reading the reviews on this one reads more like a restart of the cold war.MY FELLOW Americans, apparently our reviews of this film have stepped on the balls of a sort of Slovakian/Russian cultural icon. I don't think we'd get so rabid about it, but I guess we'd feel kinda the same way if they started bad-mouthing Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz. This movie is shown yearly on TV in some countries and I guess the fairy tales related in it go back centuries. It's fascinating too that those commenting from Slovakia/Russia/Czech Republic/etc. didn't really get on-line in significant numbers until about 2003, and even now their number of on-line users is only about 35%. Yet they've found IMDb, and particularly this movie, in vast numbers. In fact, I suspect some sort of voting/movie review campaign was involved with this. If you check the "Loved it" reviews (those reviewers that rated the movie 3.9 or above), you find they number 43 out of a total of 117 reviews (as of this writing). Of those 43 positive reviewers, 31 have reviewed only ONE movie; this one. A record, I believe. I smell a rat in that math. Frankly, they seem to view this as more of an attack on their culture and history than just some movie reviews from boneheads like me.However, they did manage to write those reviews in English (if sometimes a bit strangled). Something I could NOT do in Russian on a Cyrillic keyboard at one of their movie sites. So I give them props for that.TO OUR FOREIGN FRIENDS who love Morozko/Jack Frost, I apologize if some of the American reviews felt like we were stomping on your 'nads. I think that the translation to English probably left a lot to be desired, and I know that, in my own case anyway, Russian culture is not very familiar (I only learned a few years ago that while the entire western world was rocking out to the Beatles in the 1960's, they, and their music, were banned in the Soviet Union. We didn't even know music COULD be banned). But you need to remember, these are just movie reviews, not cultural attacks. Also, children, including teenagers, are allowed to comment on IMDb, and nobody knows what they might say, so ignore the odd review that doesn't make any sense.That being said, I just didn't like this movie very much. Besides the cultural stuff that was lost on me, and likely translation problems (learning to sit on a shovel????), I just didn't think it was very good. That's not a cultural attack, it's an opinion on this movie. Americans have lots of kids movies too, both good and bad. Two examples are The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). Both are wild, weird, children's stories. In fact, I would venture to say that Wizard of Oz is stranger even than Morozko, with trees, scarecrows, lions and robots that all talk, as well as witches and monkeys flying around. I found both TWoO and SCCtM very entertaining when I was young, but children are easily entertained. As an adult I still like Wizard of Oz, as it was a well made and well told story. But I found out that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a piece of crap that is ONLY enjoyable by children. Americans give SCCtM a lower rating here on IMDb (2.3) than we give Morozko (2.6). But for those of you that rated this movie a 10, I'm afraid to find out what movies get a rating of 1. So try not to take our movie reviews so personally. You seem to find them much more important than we do. They're opinions which can be easily disregarded.There. I feel better because of my attempt at détente.