The Inhabited Island (2008)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

One of the best films i have seen

Better Late Then Never

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

First things first: Make sure to see this in the 227min original (two-part) version. The international (one-part) release is a hack job with many crucial scenes missing, and a new cartoon title sequence that doesn't quite fit the mood.The movie's greatest asset is certainly the Strugatzky brothers' nuanced story about a planet corrupt to the bone and the hero's moral imperative to intervene. The story is largely treated with respect, and while I can relate to some of the criticism aimed at the movie - there are some continuity issues, the casting might not suit everyone's taste, as won't the Matrix-style kung fu - this is a well-realised sci-fi flick that's worth watching for the strength of its story alone.Yes, Tarkovsky would have made this a different movie, and I'm surely going to watch Aleksey German's 'Hard To Be A God', but I for one didn't mind this movie's bubblegum aesthetics while pondering existential moral dilemmas.

Phew, what to say about this movie. There is simply too much to discuss. This is quite the impression you will get watching this film. It rushes from theme to theme, literally rushes! Let's start at the very base, a Strugatsky novel. I read a few Strugatsky stories, most notably of course "Roadside picnic". "Obitaemyy ostrov" however is not "stalker", no 10 out of 10 that is.The brothers Strugatsky were Soviet writers, so some of their stories dealt with the soviet ideal human. In "Obitaemyy ostrov" earth has made it, and no doubt, all humanity transformed into perfect (probably communist) beings. That means every human being utilizes all of his/her potential: Mentally, physically and ethically. The latter is of most importance. A perfect communist is of almost angelic moral integrity. Whatever powers he will possess or obtain, he will not use these in any selfish or abusive way.That said, our "hero" is a most beautiful, well build "Übermensch" (astonishing blond an blue eyed) from earth, with perfect integrity and morality. He is young, and unfortunately crashes on a strange planet. His spacecraft explodes, he is lost. As he is an "Übermensch", he is not desperate.In fact he is imprisoned by a totalitarian state, escapes by accident, falls in love, and the story really gets complicated from then on. Right now there are true spoilers to come. So stop reading, if you want to watch the movie unbiased.The unknown fathers reign over a city, that is (of course) a mixture of Metropolis and Blade Runner, and a little design of Dune. As the story evolves you will learn that almost everyone is controlled be rays send out by so called defense towers. These rays work at a subconscious level. Our hero is immune, as is a group of people, fought by the state as terrorists. Well the (super-)earthling becomes (in order of appearance) a prisoner, guard elite soldier, free individual and lover, terrorist, convict, runaway convict, terrorist leader, member of the establishment, revolutionary and finally earthling again. The hero is somewhat naive. He tries all these positions like a youngster without any prejudices. In the end, he knows about the foundation of the political system. The political elite of the state resembles a bit Stalin's system. The state's attorney is in trouble. That means he is about to be murdered. He tries to convince our hero to destroy the central of the ray-emitting towers and take over the power after wards. With the help of some co-convicts the hero succeeds, but destroys the central of power instead.One of the very nice and intelligent moments of the movie is the instance, where the friends of the hero take over power. And one really feels the temptation of power. Almost brilliant.One high ranking member of the government turns out to be human (thus superhuman) as well. He is furious about the actions of our young hero. The so called roamer tries to change the system since 20 years. But he tries to avoid unnecessary losses or victims. He is the man for the slow change, no revolution. The young hero is the revolutionary, simply incapable of bearing the injustice. While exchanging some intellectual backgrounds the roamer and the hero beat hell out of each other. Really strange (for super-humans) I think. And naturally, the young rebel insists on a quick change.The movie is optically splendid, albeit the cgi is about 10 years behind. They have enough budget to make things look convincing most of the time. Designwise they steal from a lot of movies.The film was more entertaining than I expected. But it has too much to tell to be really great. A lot of interesting things just rush by. Well, and the same might be true about this comment.

... for the movie cooked from all possible clichés. Let's call it "a movie of the future": no interesting dialogues, no interesting character dynamics, sexually decent, a product. Not only lacking a point, but totally chaotic at the end. Much like a ruined orgasm. Actually, there were lots of completely confusing moments all along. Main character was so artificially angelic beautiful - in a nonsense commercial-romantic way, that it was almost disgusting to watch.The only positive things was a vision of the perverse futuristic world, dark, totalitarian, rainy, muddy, technocratic, but also kind of futuristic baroque. A bit reminding me of 5th element, or Chronicles of Riddick. (Or just today.) So much more interesting plots, events, interaction could have been set in this environment.It's 2011 ... and you want a science-fiction? Watch Aliens, Avatar, Abyss, Terminator or at least Matrix.

Can't understand all this negative hysteria. Most of which is actually about nothing ("crap! oh, such a crap! totally crap!" often mentioning that Bondarchuk is a bad director). Well, I can partly understand those who admired the original book (which is really worth reading) as they may have imagined everything in different manner (this is particularly true for sci-fi adaptations). But very often I read comments of people who seemed to be negatively oriented even before they really watched the film. The movie is not piece of art. It really takes a lot from classic sci-fi movies (from costumes designs to city views). And directing sometimes is confusing. But the film has one strong point - the plot, original story that authors reflected rather well. Special effects are good (they were performed by American specialists), acting is not bad (dramatic acting usually is not required in sci-fi action movies). In essence, the movie is good and worth seeing. Don't take negative comments for granted.BTW as far as I know Boris Strugaztsky (the one of two brothers who is still alive) liked the adaptation.