Titanium

This movie appears to have many names. Vychislitel is the original Russian name but in English it appears to be called Calculator, in French Titanium and in German Titanium – Strafplanet XT-59. The English title is, as far as I understand it, the one closest to the original Russian name.

I have to confess that I had some problems following this movie since the original language is, of course, Russian and my Russian is a wee bit rusty as in non-existent. Therefore we had to watch it dubbed which is something I normally never do. Unfortunately the French are lousy (arrogant) when it comes to foreign movies and even on a Blu-ray disc they can generally only be bothered to include a French sound track if the original movie is not English. Thus we had to watch it in French and my French is not really good enough to understand all the nuances.

Anyway this is a fairly decent little science fiction movie. Not a great one but definitely decent. The story is perhaps not the most innovative around. On a planet rather hostile to human life with a totalitarian government controlling the inhabitant's lives in minute detail, including who they marry etc… a group of condemned prisoners are let loose on the planets surface where they are expected to die. Naturally some of them do not but manages to undertake a journey which brings them to a secret hideout with the means to escape. The movie tells the story about their journey.

The reason we bought this movie was because me and my oldest son saw the trailer on TV (I know, you should never buy a movie based on the trailer) and it looked quite cool with some original special effects. There are indeed some cool looking special effects in this movie. The black and hostile landscape are quite cool and it is filled with some rather original life forms. All of them very hostile towards anything biological that moves of course.

Unfortunately the movie did not appear to be made on a very high budget. The monsters and the scenery are quite cool as I wrote but a lot of the movie is spent on people walking, people talking or people arguing. A lot of the cool stuff was shown in the trailer though. Having said that, the scenery and the acting was still quite decent although, as I also said, I did struggle a bit to follow all of the interactions.

As a whole it was an interesting movie if you are a science fiction fan but people looking for a special effects and action loaded movie will probably be disappointed. I did not feel like a waste of time for me (I am a science fiction fan after all) but it was not a "wow this movie was good" moment either.

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.

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.

I bought it on bluray because i collect scifi b movies and i was pleasently surprised.

Not original but really atmospheric with great ideas for the monsters, good main character and some cool spaceships designs with a tron flavour. Overall i dont think it has major flaws, its simple but fun, and i really enjoyed it.

Very giod b movie which works great in russian too.