Burnt by the Sun 2: Exodus (2010)

Excellent, a Must See

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Don't Believe the Hype

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Granted, Burnt By the Sun 2 is not as good as the original, but as an anti-war film it is still watchable. I think rating it one star out of ten is excessively and unjustifiably harsh on the film and director Mikhalkov.I have no way of gauging the historic accuracy of the film, so I will avoid looking at it from that angle. As a war film, expensively done - some scenes of destruction are stunning - and at 3 hours, I enjoyed watching it. The jumping back-and-forth within a period of 3-4 years was not done properly, nor was it necessary in my opinion. This makes the story a bit hard to follow for viewers like me. The blood and gore in battle scenes did not turn me off, and it did to some, and I have no issue of Mikhalkov taking an extra step in depicting the horror of war and the physical damage done to human bodies. War had never been pleasant.Keep and open mind and watch this film. Brush aside its shortcomings. One can still find a decent film in BYTS2.

The reason Mikhalkov's film became Russia's worst box office flop is obvious. It is a very bad movie. It has a stupid script, useless scenes of violence, gore and defecation. It has bad acting, discontinuity and retcon. All of the characters that were presumed dead since the first film are there, alive, and surprisingly changed their age.The acting is terrible, all actors except Menshikov are copying Mikhalkov's manner of raving, mumbling and gabbling. They are hysterical all the way, they never seem to calm down. They scream and shout when they need not to.Another reason for the film to fail is that it offended the feelings of Russians. It shows their army as a pack of hysterical idiots who shoot and blast each other. In the same time, it portrays invading Wehrmacht as kind and cheery boys. Germans don't seem to be there to fight and conquer, they only return fire when attacked by those crazy russkies. Any violence from Nazi troops is always provoked by Russians.It is surprising that some in the West consider this movie a Russian patriotic propaganda. In Russia itself it is clearly viewed as anti-patriotic. The movie dishonors Russian army, it exaggerates the role of penal battalions packed with former political prisoners, and downplays the role of the ordinary Red Army units. It shows Russian generals as drunkards, their Supreme Commander as a psycho, and the Red Army as a gang without any discipline or subordination.In this film, Russians seem not to fight Germans, but trying to die by any means. In the second part of the film, Stalin even directly orders to LOSE MORE SOLDIERS in action. Oh, these Stalin, he's sooo eeeevil, and hates his own army more than Nazi do. Overall, the movie doesn't work even as anti-Stalin propaganda, because no viewer can believe such stupidity.Still, after all, one may find the film amusing, because it has so many stupid and ridiculous scenes that make it worth watching. See a Nazi air fighter defecating on a Russian ship; see Stalin having his face dipped into cake; a German tank crew giving chocolates to Russian soldiers; a scout leader pissing his pants; a nurse stripping before dying soldier who have never seen woman's breast; see Christ Magic as an Orthodox priest brings down German attack plane with his prayer... The film is so bad that it's good. Mikhalkov could make a hilarious parody of war films - unfortunately, his movie pretends to be a serious drama.

I feel a little awkward being the ONLY viewer thus far to give this a positive review, but I loved it ... I was riveted to the screen for the full 3 hrs, and absolutely can't wait for the final chapter, due out next year. Granted, this thing is a bit awkward, seen as a sequel to the great first film, but I feel that, viewed on it's own merits, it's good , possibly even epic, storytelling, very engaging and well produced. This is not "great art", and doesn't compare to the original,which I regard as quite monumental in it's subtly powerful depiction of Stalinist totalitarianism .. but I don't see that as a justification for ridiculing this one. I've long been an avid fan and collector of Russian cinema, with over a hundred DVD titles in my collection, and, in my humble opinion, this one is at least above average, overall, despite some flaws. I'm having a difficult time understanding the almost visceral revulsion shown towards this film by other reviewers ...This one has a plot, a separated father and daughter searching for one another amidst the insanity and horrors of war ... It's a bit old fashioned, but I find that refreshing. Frankly, I'm appalled at the way so many critics these days are eager to praise a film, based entirely on it's textural and stylistic oddities, with virtually no apparent consideration of whether the movie has any real substance or content, at all. I went into this with very low expectations, believing that Mikhalkov had sold out and just lost it, after the horrid "Barber of Siberia", and the disgustingly bad "1612", to which he had attached his name. However, I was pleasantly relieved, and now consider that this could truly be his Magnum Opus, although, since "2" is really only half a film, final judgement will depend much on the third and final instalment.There are moments of surreal beauty in this, as when his daughter is nearly killed by a falling Stalin bust after a ship explodes, and the scene wherein his daughter bares her breasts to a dying tank soldier amid a vast snow covered wasteland of wreckage ... I found that almost unbearably poignant. All the reviewers laugh derisively at that scene .. Why ???? I can well imagine that if I were a young, inexperienced boy dying a lonely death, attended at the last moment by a lovely young girl, my last wish might be the same ... Isn't this human ??The acting is good, and generally restrained, .. Menshikov puts in a strong performance, as opposed to his clownish overacting in "Barber" and his rather weak understatement in Dr. Zhivago.Other criticism mentions that there is is a bit too much emphasis on the Orthodox faith in evidence here .. but that is far from historically inaccurate ... When faced with possible defeat Stalin did take the reins off for awhile, and there was a strong resurgence of the church, as there is today in Russia. Many newer Russian films suffer from a blatant , overt patriotism ... but this film is not thus guilty, neither side is depicted as perfect, and the sense of patriotism you do get from this is natural and realistic. I believe that the father/daughter framework in this story comes straight from Mikhalkov's heart. For evidence of this, watch his very personal and wonderful documentary, "Anna from Six to Eighteen".While this film is possibly closer in tone to Klimov's "Come and See", than it is to Mikhalkov's earlier classic, I found it a great experience, and believe that, were it given a wider release in the West, it would likely find a much larger audience. Unfortunately the DVD currently available in N. America bears rather poor English subtitles, I found the film so thoroughly enjoyable, that this did not detract from the overall experience. I have a very low tolerance for bad films, seldom being able to sit through a full 90 minutes of Hollywood product, but , for me, the 3 hours of this film passed by like minutes!!

As everyone already knows this is the most expensive movie made in Russia. So I was expecting some good story and visual effects. But what we got was something awful. There is no story in the movie, it's more like "let's show them that scene, now let's show them this scene" and the connection between scenes is really unnatural. This movie is anti-historical. There were no "shtrafbat" in 1941, there were no German tanks under sails, Stalin was not looking like a zombie etc etc. And another thing is, that Red Army did fight against Germans, but for some reason Nikita Mikhalkov is showing us that Soviet Army is a bunch of scared and unorganized people. if things were like that Germans would have taken over Moscow in 41. Some of the scenes of this movie are so ridiculous that I do not even want to talk about them. For example, the scene where German shooter wants to s**t right out of a flying plane. That is impossible and you can't move your plot by creating impossible situations.So, in conclusion, I would like to say that it is unpatriotic, stupid, anti-historical movie with very poor visual effects. Do not watch