osm-1

We know little about Ancient Rome's manners and habits, but we're certain that Romans were too brutal to be shown on national TV in prime time. So what do you expect from TV series? Probably not some historic research, but rather a decent show. These series belong to "blood & sperm" genre. Only a few first episodes pretend to show something unusual about characters behavior. The further the more characters & plot features obviously are taken from modern life, not ancient. Maybe it's funny for people to view ancient "product placement" and other BTL marketing techniques in historical show; but it doesn't add much to plot or background; so in my opinion it's a rather dumb joke.

If authors could concentrate on ancient life better, the show would only benefit.

This movie pretends on telling the truth about war. Instead it's providing a bunch of episodes covering "Platoon" and "Full metal jacket". It pretends being based on a real story, however, it shows almost nothing real about that war. What it shows is: some Vietnam war, some Chechen war, some Bondarchuk's conception of war and Soviet reality. Unlike "Black Hawk Down", "Platoon" and other war movies, no real war tactics is shown. The characters wage war like being battered by John Rambo in "Rambo-3". The only definite good side of this movie is showing tragedy of the whole 80s years for the Soviet Union. So the whole thing is good-for-Russia action movie, nothing else.

Simply can't understand why this movie in Top250.

Yes, there are some SFXs, but none too spectacular. There is a plot, but unfortunately it's too weak. The plot for the second half of the movie is just boring.

Characters are too flat.

There's no logic at all in plot and all the character play. Jokes are at 12-year-old level.

So the movie is obviously targeted at teenagers. Director is making a good job of transmitting some popular-with-teens images onto Lucas ground. Nothing more.

So, I can recommend this movie as an example of the excellent use of BTL budget only. 4 out of 10.