Burnt by the Sun 2: Exodus (2010)

Very well executed

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

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.

Before obtaining a copy of this film, and being very fond of Part 1, I read some of the reviews here. When reactions were so violent and outraged, most probably they were subjective and the product of defective education. Some even bordered on malignant stupidity. But this could be expected from the contemporary one-book, action-movie generations.Although not the best of the Mikhalkov's movies, it is not bad at all. It could be vastly improved by re-cutting and shortening by one hour or so, but it nevertheless gives an accurate and touching picture of the horrors of the WW II in Soviet Union, of the enormous loss of young lives because of the monstrous Stalinist regime. Red Army was practically headless in 1941 because the majority of its leaders was either killed or in Gulags. It took some time and enormous loss of lives, equipment and territory, to push forward new and capable Red Army leaders and to train the ill prepared troops to fight Germans on equal footing. Mikhalkov's film accurately portrays the chaotic days of '41.If you want to be "awake" go watch Steven Seagal or some such American crap, Mikhalkov is not for you. You are incapable of understanding the fight for survival on your own soil. So, shut up. If you don't like it, why watch it?

You know, when I first read this first review, I thought that the reviewer is a idiot. And the lousiest historian if he is one. Stop rewriting history that is connected with 1941-1945!!! Your review is anti-historical ' There were no "shtrafbat" in 1941'- true, but that wasn't shtrafbat, it was a work camp for the 'political criminals'. ' Soviet Army is a bunch of scared and unorganized people'- yes they were until the battle for Moscow. My great grandfather knows better because he had seen this situation by his own eyes, being a colonel in the soviet army. They were unorganized because of the suddenness of the German attack. Everybody thought that the German war machine is unstoppable. So I'd say mr. Mikhalkov had made a great film, that was made only to show how it's like in the 1941. He just wanted to show the proof. I'ts not important that the ' German tanks were under sails' he just wanted to show that Germans was ideologically strong. By the way, Stalin didn't 'look like a zombie', but he was in depression at his summerhouse for several days when the war began.

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