Titanium

A thousand years after mankind began to colonize the stars, this movie takes a look at the planet XT 59. There is only one big city on this planet, surrounded by a wasteland which is full of hostile creatures (most of them rather plants than animals). Ten prisoners are sent into the wasteland and that equals almost a death penalty. They can either make it to an island beyond the wasteland, or they will perish. Ervin (Evgeniy Mironov) and Kristi (Anna Chipovskaya) attempt to cross the wasteland on their own, while the others stay together under the leadership of the brutal criminal Yust (Vinnie Jones), believing he is the only one who can take them across the 'swamp' (actually a stony desert in Iceland) alive...

The Russian original title 'Vychislitel' ('calculator') refers to the special skills of Ervin. He is a rather emotionless guy who calculates his chances to survive very carefully. Thus we get a duel between the thinking man and the violent one, quite the opposite of 'Riddick' where simply only the strong survive. In a good tradition of Russian SF this movie is character driven, and the dialogs between Ervin and Kristi during their voyage are well written. I was less convinced with the off monologues, too wordy, explaining more than necessary, while more important questions remain open, for example the motivation of the government and the reasons for the system. All in all, 'Titanium' aka 'Vychislitel' is an interesting movie, worth watching, but not top of the crop in independent SF.

So so movie, but you will be constantly irritated by dumb woman that follows the main character. She constantly creates problems, but calculator can't calculate that the problem is her.

This is not really a review, it should be taken more as a collection of impressions of the film.

This movie has crazy potential but it's done so badly that it's almost completely wasted. The film wants to be a great film of social criticism with a dystopian future rendered very well and then transformed into a journey of growth of both positive and negative characters. Talking about the characters they are also very well characterized so where does this film lose its potential? Well a lot is lost with terrible special effects and the rest is terribly wasted with the abominable acting performance.

I am still watching the movie as I write this... I am not sure if the script is poor or its the french translation. I will force myself to finish it, but after 30+ minutes it feels like waste of time.

The problems with the film are mostly technical. The actors are really bad and the direction is next to non existent. The special effects are decent, but can't cope with the lack of movie making skills. For some unfathomable reason Vinnie Jones is in this, too.

Where the movie shines, though, is the hero. Where an American movie would have placed some blonde athlete as the protagonist, saving the girl by the power of his muscles and emotions, the Russian hero is a wimpy ex-aparatchic, a smart guy who thinks of solutions in advance of facing the problems. Cold, like a computer, but capable of some human emotions, he survives by the force of his brain. Reminds me of the Russian sci-fi of old, where the actors were all scientists and engineers. We need more of that.

The made for the French version of this film is called Titanium for some dumb reason, so people will have trouble not only hearing of the film, but also finding it on IMDb, like I have and also finding a decent translation.

Bottom line: the low quality in directing and acting make this a movie difficult to recommend. Something hard to understand, since the Russians have a decent film school. I wish they would invest more in Russian sci-fi stories, which are usually refreshingly original and closer to my heart. Or maybe I am just melancholic about my childhood.