Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

An absolute waste of money

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

"Ilya Muromets" looks gorgeous. It's beautifully shot -- such that many scenes almost look more like spectacular paintings rather than shots from a live action film -- and lavishly produced and costumed. One can tell that there was no expense spared on the extensive location shooting, swarming armies, et cetera, and visually this all pays off. Unfortunately, that's mostly all of what this film as going for it, and ninety minutes of scenic decoration eventually becomes too much. The story is based on a very old Russian folk tale, but it seems to me that the writer of its adaptation didn't pay a lot of attention to what would make it into an entertaining film. We end up with a spectacle that is largely plot less for much of its running time, revolving around the hero effortlessly doing some casual superhuman trick, then getting lauded for it by everyone. We get the message that people are supposed to like him a lot, but we don't feel it ourselves. We move past being quite so episodic about halfway through as get some story, but the villains are too cackling and over the top to seem a threat, and the heroes are still presented devoid enough of character, revealing dialogue, or involving story that I didn't find it involving. We jump far ahead in time at various points, but nobody seems to change much, so we end up with a film trying to tell what should be a lot and weighty story that in fact carries none of the impact it should. Then we have a few plot howler moments as well, such as the long-lost son immediately changing his national allegiance and vowing to fight for it as soon as somebody new claims to be his dad. It deserves commendation for fantastic photography and production, but unfortunately the humorlessly uninvolving story keeps it from being very entertaining, so I can't say it didn't deserve the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment that it ended up receiving.

This film looks like it had very impressive production values. Huge sets, a rather decent looking monster and other things one associates with a big time budget. What it lacks is a coherent story, however, this may be more due to the fact this is a heavily edited American cut of the film, cut even more so by the fact I saw it on MST3K. What I saw warrants a score of three, mainly due to the fact it seemed to randomly jump from scene to scene. If I ever see a print of the film as it was meant to be seen I will gladly score and review it again, but now I have to review the film as I saw it. Unfortunately, what I saw in terms of story was a convoluted mess.The story is the main problem, but I will attempt to explain the main gist of it as I saw it. A man is crippled, unable to move, an evil warlord type is plundering the land and a strange hero who may as well not been in the film at all dies and wishes for these men to pass his sword to another. Well, these men find the poor man who is crippled and witnessed his village pillaged and his wife taken by the horde and they make him better and give him the sword that he does not use very often at all during the film. He goes to the prince of the kingdom's palace (why not a king?) and brings him this creature that blows wind. At a point he is reunited with his wife, only to promptly leave her side again and she is again captured, for some strange reason the prince locks up the hero and during this time the wife has their son a big battle occurs where the hero has a plan that does not really seem like a plan. You just know there is something being missed of vital importance, unfortunately during the early years when they dubbed these films they often times did less translating and more insert whatever sort of make sense and that seems the case here.The title of "The Sword and the Dragon" makes one think that both play a vital role in this film. Well neither does, as the hero rarely pulls the sword out and the dragon only has a short scene in the beginning and a longer scene at the end. It looks very good, however, as it reminded me of Godzilla's foe King Gidorah. It looks like they made a fairly large sized model of it too. My guess is though that the original Russian title made no reference to either the sword or the dragon.The set pieces in this one looked great. The forest the hero goes to looks really good with its large and twisted trees. They also do an okay job at a full scale battle, though one will see that there really was not much done during the battle after the two sides rushed each other. The castle and village look good and like I said the production did a great job especially considering it was 1956. It is one of the reasons I have to believe that the story would be much better if it was not dubbed. I just do not see them putting all this effort into everything else, but not the story.So, from what I saw it was a incoherent movie with great scenery and a cool looking dragon. I am sure the film would be better if seen in its original Russian, but I saw what I saw and that is what I reviewed. I know a lot of people bash MST3K at times for putting down movies such as these, but without them I never would have seen this film at all and I bet that goes for a lot of other people as well. It is also not their fault that the film was horribly reedited and dubbed for American audiences. It was, for me, an interesting watch and in the end most certainly not one of the worst films I have seen them do.

Reading through the various user comments on IMDb for The Sword and the Dragon (the title I saw the film under) I notice words like surreal, bizarre, goofy, ridiculous, wacky, and weird. I can understand how someone might use each of these adjectives to describe the movie. As I watched, I might have been tempted to use any one of these words at various times. But unfortunately, one word you won't see me use is "entertaining". The style of the movie did not appeal to me in the least. The Sword and the Dragon seemed to be filled with such broad overacting that it became absurd. I realize that the movie was made over 50 years ago in the Soviet Union. I understand that the movie is filled with messages and other pro-worker propaganda. And I appreciate the importance of the film as a relic of the communist system. But none of that means I have to actually like the movie.So overall, while I appreciate the opportunity to see something as different and unique as The Sword and the Dragon, I'm not in any hurry to rush out and create a fan club. Interesting? – Yes. Entertaining? - No.I saw The Sword and the Dragon courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I've heard such good things about all of the Russo-Finnish films that I was excited to give this one a chance. Sadly, it didn't live-up to the hype. The comedy too often is directed at the obvious - making fun of a different culture. In the end, I'll rate this episode a 3/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

I remember seeing this film on the "Million Dollar Movie" on channel 9 {in the New York area} in the early 60s and I also had the Dell comic book adaptation.As a child it was impressive and it still holds up today.Basically its the story of the legendary Ilya Murometz{the Russian Giant}and his attempt to rid his land of the invading Tugars-in reality Mongols-who had their name changed for this film.The film features beautiful color photography, some massive battle scenes set against an Eisenstein like darkening sky, decent special effects like the Wind Demon, the Pig Man , the three headed fire dragon and some musical numbers too,including a sexy belly dancer at the Tugar's camp-adolescent fantasy material! .There probably is a pro Soviet message, but due to the fall of the Soviet Union it is no longer relevant.The acting which has often been criticized is actually pretty good on its own level, its just the English dubbing that somewhat works against it.An early example of the medieval themed "sword and sorcery" genre that became briefly popular in the 80s with films like "Excalibur" and "Conan the Barbarian", this one is entertaining, well produced and has an overall sense of innocence and wonder about it that is hard to resist. It may not be perfect, but it does what it has to do very well. Give it a shot. You might enjoy it.