Savva. Serdtse voina

Is a cartoon just to be. But many good movies start like this. Is good for kids under 7.

Come on... it is a mess. Without any sense, no story-line, too much of everything... What is good for me in this animation is music - that's all. I think 5 is too much for such a non professional work. And it is not about that it is done by Russians - it as all about screenplay - bad. I saw this animation till the end to understand what is all about and if it is possible to show it to my 4 years kid - no way... Not very bad graphics with very bad story. And that's not counting the borrowings - in the beginning the monster comes into the hut - Brotherhood of the Wolf, the monkeys - The Jungle Book, hyenas - The Lion King. Characters looks like they came from the pen of the Japan-China animators. This eared Pokemon looks very strange? Shaman and knight from Ronal Barbaren was the cherry on the pie...

My 3 year old son enjoys watching this movie on Netflix. We have seen it over and over. There is a lot of characters, and drama in the plot. The music is great as well. The only thing I do not care for in the movie, is the racism comment that is made by the Monkey Queen. When addressing some of her monkeys she calls them "crackers" and they speak with southern/hillbilly accents. It might be that I am from the south, and that is why I find the comment offensive. Or maybe I am thinking too much into it. It took me watching the movie about 10xs (cause when you have a 3 year old that likes a movie, you will watch it over and over and over again)...to catch the comment. I am trying to decide whether I want to continue to allow my son to watch it after the political/racist comment was made. I would advise parents to watch the movie first, to make sure it is something you would want your children to watch.

This is the first animation that was imported to Ukraine from Russia AND fully voiced in Ukrainian. Before, we used to only get subtitled versions of Russian movies and TV-shows (though, one might wonder why are we importing anything at all, considering the war). So, despite being understandably cautious, I was expecting something at least half-decent. Russians aren't at all that bad at making animations and movies ― I've watched a lot of them and I've found some very worthy ones.

In "Savva", however, we can clearly see politics bleeding into the territory of art. The result of such process is a piece of not art, but barely concealed propaganda, a product of Russian brainwashing industry. The most prominent example of it is the animation's portrayal of villains ― hyenas, which were painted* in blue and yellow, Ukrainian national colors. Symbolism of this is beyond obvious, it's practically screaming 'Ukrainians are evil'. At this point I was surprised this was even allowed to reach theaters in my country.

Also, one of the voice-acting stars who voiced Ukrainian version of "Savva" was Vladimir Zelensky, an actor and a TV-series director known for his anti-Ukrainian attitude and offensive statements. His photo was even featured on this animation's posters. I hope you can imagine in which way this fact influenced my impressions of the title.

The parts of it that are not trying to plant a toxic idea in your subconscious aren't good either. A pile of random ideas crumpled together, the execution of which is pathetic. Some people might like background music, but to me it seemed like a wasted effort. The story is not interesting, in fact, it's barely even there.

All in all, I'd say "Savva" is just bad. It's poorly made, and it's harmful to your mental health, unless you count brainwashed as a natural state of mind (you WILL get brainwashed, eventually, if you subsequently watch this, or the likes of it). So, please, do yourself a favor and stay away from this atrocity. You'll thank me later.

* ― there's this speculation that they weren't originally supposed to be like this. In the first teaser (03.03.2011) hyenas were shown to be green and yellow, instead of blue and yellow. However, we have to judge the product by its final state.

Terrible writing and voice acting in the English version was truly awful. Maybe it was just a bad translation. I liked most of the animation style. In English the movie was unwatchable and I had to turn it off half way through. I could not stand listening to any more.

Milla Jovovich's voice acting as the young male lead character was just off. The tones were all wrong, all the wrong emotions, terrible timings. It was distractedly bad and did not fit at all.

I can see where it might of been good in the original Russian. They blew their budget on big name voice actors and got a hack writer to vomit a script. Maybe a fan made subtitled version will become available and I can try watching this again.