Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Masterpiece!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

I haven't seen many Russian movies, so I don't have the background of some of the other reviewers. But I found the political propaganda element of this movie tiresome. The Wikipedia article about the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 states that the shelling was started by the Russian-backed, South Ossetian separatists, and that the ethnic cleansing during the war was also done by South Ossetians as opposed to Georgians. As I watched the film, I got tired of seeing Georgian soldiers without faces- wearing black face masks and goggles to remove the human element. All the Russian soldiers had their faces uncovered throughout the movie, and showed all the different emotional shades of their unwavering bravery, hulk-like strength, and a deep compassion for children, puppies, and hot women. I think the take-away from this movie was supposed to be something like "Outnumbered and with the odds stacked against them, the Russians somehow managed to pull out a victory from the Russo-Georgian war, which they were forced to intervene in because of a looming humanitarian crisis and the inhumane brutality of the Georgian military." While this message was entertaining at first, by the end it was just plain irritating. I enjoy subtlety. The more overt the propaganda element got, the more angry I was at Russia by the end of the film, for lying to me and for being a bully with a massive modern military that invades other countries, annexes them, and then lies to everyone involved with such blatant lies that it leaves you utterly bewildered as to what to do about the gross injustice of it all. One of the things about American propaganda films, such as "Lone Survivor," is that it at least ATTEMPTS to tell the truth from both sides of the coin. There is no way America could get away politically with its wars if the movies didn't tell the truth about them to assuage our conscience (c.f. "Green Zone"). Apparently Russia not only wages unjust wars, but its movies about them are just plain lies.I gave this 3-star humanitarian travesty of a film 6 stars for the special effects. The combat scenes are believable and entertaining. Seeing the Russian military in action makes me glad we're not at war with them.

I am not here to judge or criticize, nobody paying me for that. I am here just to say that this movie is about a real life. This movie captures in itself more than I could ever expect from a Russian movie. Its about war, its about care, its about love. Nothing is perfect in this world including this movie. The script could be better, the cast could be better, the story could be better, the actor performance could be better, BUT. One...... big...... BUT! The inner fight in a heart of the soldier between responsibilities, duties and care for girl he doesn't know ; the sacrifice of one girl facing the demon of war in name of life ; the love in the eyes of the soldier; This cannon be any better! Please watch it!

This movie is supposed to be a patriotic movie about the events happened in August 2008. First of all, it is totally unclear to me, why a Russian movie was shot in a Hollywood blockbuster style. Russian cinema is able of producing its own solid motion pictures without copying foreign movies. Secondly, as seen from the first scene of the movie, there were people able of making good computer graphics involved in production. A young boy imagines a robot fighting forces of evil. The total disappointment is that later in the movie these computerized characters appear so often, that the movie genre slowly deviates from drama and military to family. Many times at the end of the movie I wished that finally monsters disappeared and I could understand what was really going on. From my point of view, it was absolutely unnecessary to include that much computer graphics, it just takes attention away. Thirdly, some events are shown in a very impressive way, but their plausibility is low. Why would Georgians use very expensive missiles to shoot single targets like a bus, a truck, or even people tracking them using cellular phone signal (is that even possible?). Georgian armed forces can't afford that. Before Americans made some investments in the armed forces, Georgia had pretty much what was left from the times when Georgia was a part of the USSR. The scene with the bus splitting into halves could make some movies like "Final destination" look pale, but, again, it looks so unreal! An actor named Vladimir Vdovichenkov played the president. He is a nice actor, with many roles in action movies, but he wasn't the president of the Russian Federation back in 2008! Lots of movies star actors resembling American presidents, why couldn't the same be done in this movie? Fourthly, the boys behaviour needs some medical attention. Frightened, stressed, he doesn't call mom for help, as a normal kid would do. Only when his mother pretends to be a robot (and he pretends to be "Kosmoboy"), he agrees to communicate using MMS messages on the cellular phone. There are some very solid and dynamic combat episodes withing the movie, nicely shot. But that's about it. Overall, this is a very light and not serious movie with annoyingly too much emphasis on computer graphics. I think the director intended for movie watchers to empathize the characters, but the actors play is lame, so I felt nothing. If you want to see a good movie about the 5-day war in August of 2008th, a movie that creates a proper atmosphere, watch Olympius Inferno.

The plot tells a story of young Muscovite Ksenia who sends her son to Caucasus to be with his father, her Ossetian ex-husband. Suddenly the war breaks out in the region, and Ksenia has to fly down there to rescue her child. Fayziev said that his heroine isn't suited for anything but mundane household dramas. Yet she has to go through the war experience and can't let herself get tired, refuse or complain, because she doesn't have a choice.The girl is annoying in the beginning, a bad mom in a miniskirt who cares only about her boyfriend. Then the character develops, she grows to be a decent mother who even understands how to cope with a breakdown of her son, who starts to hide from war in a world of imaginary robots. The film reminded me of Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" because of the kid's way to protect himself from terror. The film has quite a crew: talented young actors, screenwriter Michael Lerner, who worked for 20 years as a war correspondent for Newsweek, Oscar-nominated film editor Dennis Virkler, Oscar-awarded sound producer Bob Bimmer ("Speed" and "Gladiator") and talented computer graphics coordinator Sergei Nevshupov ("Lord of The Rings" and "Avatar"). Animation consultant on the set was Alexander Dorogov, who's known for his work with Walt Disney Feature Animation. Fayziev said he initially planned foreign professionals on key production roles, "so that they showed us how to do decent movies correctly and to speed up the process."We are used here to prefer Hollywood movies to local, because the latter are less visual. Well, this one pulls the image pretty well and might be the first made on such a level in Russia.