Volja sinovljeva

This movie is the first of its kind of these kinds of movies in Serbia. It has a great pace; the background lore is given in moderation; the characters are believable and you easily love the and cheer for the heroes, and hate and boo the villains, without anyone coming off as comical; character motivations are there, and every reaction makes sense from an internal logic standpoint.

The movie tells a classic hero's journey tale: a farm guy leaves his home behind to embark on a quest to save the ones he love, gets the girl, fights the bad guy minions to have an epic showdown with the main bad guy at the end, and returning to the starting places, having changed in the process.

The movie blends Serbian culture, style, and folklore elements with modern and more "Western" style, resulting in a very unique blend. It might be wrongully called "Serbian Mad Max" or "Serbian Fallout", but the comparison is only superficial: a post-apocalyptic setting. This is where the similarities end. It's a thing of its own, with its own identity, and a possibility of a wider story with future installments.

If this is the first of these kinds of modern epics to come, then it is a bright future for sure!

Other than the obvious great job done from the filming crew and color profile of the movie, everything else about it just bad. Story is weak, overdramatized and inconsistent, with bad acting, and the weirdest coctail of Mad Max wannabe, biker leather jackets, samurai swords, weird accents, random fidget spinner stuff all mixed together in the blender of terrible. The script sounds like it was written in english and google translate had the job of translating it to serbian, literally word for word. I was strangled and held hostage by this two and a half hour missery. Do yourself a favor and don't watch this. Two stars for camera crew and effects team. You guys make your own movie.

First and foremost, I can't express how proud and grateful I am to everyone involved in making this film. This is a huge step for Serbian, and I dare say ex-Yugoslav, cinema, and it fully deserves praise in that regard.

I absolutely disagree with other reviews that mention bad acting. On the contrary, the casting was fantastic, and most of the actors did an excellent job. This film also showed me how many "cinematic" actors we have, those whom the camera truly loves (the Bencina brothers for example). Let's be clear, this isn't a movie where anyone's acting is supposed to stand out, and it doesn't need to. Yes, there were a few lines of dialogue that made me raise an eyebrow in dismay, but that's negligible. What was truly irritating, loud, and downright ridiculous was: "OBJAVA KULE, OBJAVA KULE" repeated every 10 minutes by a Santa Claus figure holding a vacuum cleaner pipe.

The special effects in this film are either a hit or a major miss. For example, some fight scenes with lots of blood look incredibly professional and have the aesthetic this film should aim for-it doesn't look cheap, which is very important. However, some basic scenes, which have been done countless times in both high-budget and low-budget films, look like a cartoon here. Specifically, I'm referring to the machine gun shooting scene, for instance.

The sound is good, and the music is excellent. My only small criticism regarding the music is that the gusle (a traditional Serbian instrument) weren't incorporated more throughout the entire film, as it is precisely the instrument through which the storyteller narrates the tale.

Where this film earns my biggest criticism-and hence the lower rating-is in its editing, or more precisely the reason behind it: a trend in our cinema, present since the release of "Montevideo, Bog te video", of turning films into series. This film, however, seems to have done the opposite. A 2.5-hour film is paced so quickly that I fear the average shot length would be alarmingly short if analyzed thoroughly. An epic story like this, with a solid concept or at least the ambition to compare itself to films like "Mad Max" or "Dune", should never have allowed itself to be butchered by such rapid cuts, especially since this type of film is appearing on our screens for the first time.

The title of this review, a line spoken by one of the characters to the storyteller, "Tell him to speed up a bit, we don't need to know everything," is the very irony this film has suffered. Quite the opposite-I was drawn into the story and wanted to know everything, slowly and at my own pace, rather than watch a 2.5-hour trailer that feels like a setup for a series. I'd much rather watch this film split into multiple parts than a butchered version made to resemble a series.

Finally, I have just one question for the creators: Fidget spinner... really?

For the past couple of years, we've been served mostly similar (read: the same) genres from Serbian cinematography-crime dramas, war stories, or rural comedies. This show, however, brings something fresh to the table. It introduces a new narrative approach and a more nuanced storytelling style that's definitely worth your time. My advice is to watch the full 8-episode series, as it broadens the scope of the story, develops characters more deeply, and fills in important details that really bring the plot together. A refreshing change and a must-watch for post-apocaliptic, Sci-Fi genre fans (myself!)!

The movie may end up being more important than good.

While it is a bit unfair to hold the Serbian production to those same standards we expect from more advanced environments, its still the same scale we have to use for both.

The movie is not good in the most strict sense. Had it beed pumped out of Hollywood it would probably earn anywhere between 4,5 and 5,5. There are too many plotholes, characters are being introduced randomly with no depth or logic within the context, and acting is often subpar.

However, depending on the reception of the audience, it could mark the beginning of the fantasy genre proper in Serbian production. The whole endeavor took some serious cojones to even begin filming, with limited language reach and national audience not properly prepared or built for the genre. In those terms, everyone must respect what has been done here.

Had it been a bit shorter, I would have thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it in the theater.

Lets hope it kickstarts the new wave of fantasy pieces in this part of the world.