armands_skutelis's reviews

Bondarchuk's last motion picture "The Inhabited Island" is very colorful and vivid piece of film. Visual material is stunning, top notch. Characters and environment are interesting and story too, for me as a die hard sci-fi fan seemed great. Yes, the main character is blond... So what? He comes from the Earth that lives in the golden age, having defeated all the illnesses and wars. People there are beautiful and they are smiling as it can be seen in the movie. On the contrary, on Saraksh people do not understand why he is smiling because there they are stricken with diseases and constant wars, radiation levels etc. Film suffers a bit from cheesiness in the end, some already seen things in other movies but it still has some good qualities. The scenes with Guards and their song are stunning.

Great visuals, great environment but still it lacks top notch acting and some things have already been seen.

I was really looking forward to see this movie. When finally I saw it on TV in Latvia I thought that Estonians have really done it well. Of course it isn't masterpiece but history also is not as beautiful as we would want to see it. 5 countries around the Baltic sea gained their independence in those years (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland)and each deserves to tell their own story to the world. For me it was a beautiful story about young people and the decisions they must make in crucial situations. Unfortunately, they couldn't make the same decisions when they were older and experienced (or maybe they couldn't because of it). For me it was interesting to see the portrait of Latvians in the war against Estonia. As one Finnish guy said he didn't understand why Latvians fought against Estonia. It was because those Latvians weren't supporters of independent Latvia. Latvia's real army wasn't fighting against Estonia. As it is for Finland we Latvians also must say thanks that independent Estonia later helped to fight against both the Soviets and the remains of German army.That in territory of Estonia was formed part of the independent Latvian army. These Latvians showed in this movie were communists who fought to build communism in Latvia. At that time there were 3 different governments in Latvia (1st independent Latvian, 2nd communist government, 3rd German-orientated government) so it is complicated not only for foreigners to understand but for Latvians who don't know history so well too.

I can only repeat other comments that it is bad as a horror movie- terrible acting, stupid (better say 0) special effects, interesting but rather dumb plot, but it kicks ass!!! The great thing about this movie is that as it sometimes can be with small budget (100 bucks budget) movies they are really good as parody of the gender. I was laughing my head off watching this movie and thinking how really stupid the film makers were to make this and tell me that it is a horror movie. They could just tell that it is parody/comedy and that all- it is great to watch actors (craptors) and producents trying to make the movie serious when it's not. Even the music- some guy in the background probably playing electric guitar and even before zombie attacks the music stops giving all of it away. If this would be big budget movie than it would be soooo bad. But for this kind of budget it really can't be good being as it is advertised- horror movie. But it is stupidly funny- I love small budget sci-fi, horror movies with rating 2-3 on IMDb!