Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Boring

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

After all these years, and Stanislavsky and our own mumbling, subliminal "method" thespians, albeit a few of them too rise above and transcend mere impersonations, Eisenstein's stylized close-up and "painterly" orchestrated set pieces, even his early use of cinema color is true art and not pastiche, elevate and transform the medium of "film." No superficial Barrymore elocutions and stridencies here. When they are present, they cut deep and true and astonishingly powerful. "Acting with the eyes" herein, in both parts of this authentic masterwork, becomes a visceral AND mental powerhouse of drama that pulses beyond mere "theater." Neither sophisticates nor cynics can sneer at this brand of "eyeball-rolling." And it all has to be attributed to the genius of Sergei Eisenstein and his collaborators. Note well he credits the cameraman second and the music scorer third, but the chef in this magical mix is the auteur, the creator, the writer/director. The two "stars," Cherkasov and Birman are, in a word, incomparable. And, in another, incredible. Talk about "power." In retrospect, what must it have been like for the genius when he met and dealt with the likes of Stalin? Now, that might be a fitting subject for some new auteur.

Part 2 followed on from Part 1 without a gap – the 2 put together would make one colossal movie. The only trouble being that the last 90 minutes or so would still be missing (Part 3). This has a 16 minute colour sequence near the end plus the last 2 minutes that added a new dimension to the story, and although the spotlighting was a bit ropey it all worked well with the usual fantastic camera angles and ugly brooding people.Ivan vacillates between doing it his way and relying on Mother Church for help. Either way the plotting aristocratic boyars have to be sorted out for once and for all, this he sets out to accomplish with the help of the Men Apart – his NKVD. In reality Ivan was going mad at this period, the similarities to Stalin still resound. Eisenstein pulled his punches but must have known Part 2 would end up in trouble, which it did – it wasn't released from the metaphorical gulag until 1958, and Part 3 was aborted. Intensely absorbing and startlingly melodramatic by turns it still hasn't got the same energy as Part 1, but that only makes it a lesser classic. Again, it resembles a sedate silent film with sound (with a bit of red this time), the simple tale powerfully told by a master propagandist using sledgehammer symbolism at every turn. Intelligent film-making is hardly the phrase to use – a previous post compared Eisenstein correctly to Kurosawa – very different styles but with the same results.Wonderful sequel, much better to be watched on the heels of Part 1. At least the people who didn't like that won't watch this and comment adversely on it, right?

After filming part I of "Ivan" in his classical vein, with his mastery of the silent era still finely honed, Eisenstein had a much different vision for Part II. It is nothing short of his Wagnerian opera, albeit with a score by the master Prokofiev, with all the surreality and hysteria inherent in opera. It is also his most modern film, with the brilliant kinetic color sequence of the banquet, surely one of the most famous and astounding scenes ever filmed. Shot in the dire depths of World War II, in 1944-45, it is like all Russian films passionately nationalistic, but perhaps it was too Wagnerian for Stalin, who hated it, demanded Eisenstein repudiate it, which not only prevented the master from filming the 3rd part of his trilogy, but destroyed his career and health.For modern audiences, particularly postmodern audiences, the film has the stagy melodramatic acting, pacing and movement of the silent era that videodrones and harrypotters will never appreciate. But out of the melodramatic style unfolds the most emotionally honest drama, however larger than life and on a grand historical canvas.

SPOILERS hereinSecond and last part of Eisenstein's unfinished trilogy about the title character, it's surprisingly very different than any other of his films, including part one: if he was known for film the Russian myths and made them look even greater to the benefit of the communist regime, here the leading character is extremely humanized and it's far away from the noble hero of the previous films: betrayed by their friends, the woman he loved dead, and hated by those around him, Ivan gradually goes insane by the loneliness of the absolute power, and is so sad and obsessed to have company that he even begs on his knees to a corrupt bishop to have his friendship. The czar, like Alexander Nevsky, is clearly a representation of Stalin, and that humanization and the remind of the assassination of former allies certainly did not pleased the man which murdered more than any other in the history of the world, and the movie was censored until 1958, five years after the dictator death and ten years after the filmmaker passed away. In the end, Ivan the Terrible part II remained as one of, if not the best picture of the director, and one of the greatest achievements in the history of cinema; the genius defeated the genocidal.