TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

denis888 And this is a serious film? A history lesson? A true depiction of real events? I am sorry, but some on, this is a real mess. It is so awful, so in-cohesive, so terribly poor that I was laughing. Well, everything is painfully wrong here - choice of Pyotr Mamonov as a Tsar Ivan The Terrible is the first and worst error - he just is a mere buffoon and horrid performer, overplaying almost every aspect, and instead of a paranoid tyrant we see a psychotic idiot with whimsical ticks. The great late Oleg Yankovski as Fillip is pale and bland, while Ivan Okhlobystin as a Tsar's jester is a simple clown with no merit. And the list goes on - the film is excruciatingly slow, painfully boring, stale and languid. Even the battle scenes and execution scenes are just a twitching mess and a true throwaway. What happened? Poor casting, poor script, poor pacing, poor camera work and very vapid message. No message. What we got was a tepid fetid livid stale pale brew. Awful and weak

p-stepien Who was Ivan the Terrible? Was he really as terrible as the name suggests or it this mostly myth and bad PR? Pawel Lungin seems to agree with the previous and paints a terrifying portrait of his persona with the ultimate counterpoint in Metropolitanate Philipp, the religious overseer of Moscow and the Church. In this tale of madness, torture and dementia the innocent will perish, but will stick with their ideals, while the cruel remain with only eternal damnation that awaits them...Both main actors Pyotr Mamonov (Ivan) and Oleg Yankovskiy (Philipp) are a real tour de force. They are absolutely unbelievably good in the parts they play and especially Mamonov gives possibly the best performance I have seen in years. And yet with some much going for the movie in the actor department I felt massively under-awed by the direction of this movie.The story never really flows or builds and essentially history passes this movie by. This would be acceptable if the focus on the two protagonists was well handled and showed a consistent cause and effect. However we never really get to feel what is happening in Russia and how that is affecting the Tsar. In the end most is left to imagination or historical knowledge, as the movie merely suggests several key moments in time, but all this happens off screen. The background - so necessary for clarity - is hardly mentioned or is passed totally. In the end you never really understand the changes in Ivan and the engulfing madness. Additionally his actions and words are incoherent and show either bad script-doctoring or an inability to convey the character as being inconsistent in his madness. Within several minutes you see Ivan turn from a god-fearing fanatic claiming all his deeds are in the name of God and for his glory into someone claiming that ruling a country takes place outside of God. No credible build-up was really given to such a sudden change of views.All in all the madness is inconsistent and after watching the movie I feel like I know less about Ivan than before watching it. Also the overly religious motifs, which plague the movie really irked me in the wrong places.

dbborroughs Pavel Lungin's flawed power house film is more a film for the head for the heart-then again it grabs you by the throat and squeezes.Nominally the story of Tsar Ivan (the terrible) battling with his Metropolitan (head of the church). The film is a battle between vengeance and mercy, its an allegory between belief and certainty, a reflection of self vision and the vision of mankind, a look at the Stalin years in Russia, and the madness of rulers in general.Its a kick in the chest.More interested in making a point the film is more an essay or fantasia or poem rather then straight narrative. There is a plot, its just that some of the details are lost and people represent things more than are characters, the Jester is Satan, the little girl grace... There is graphic realism and yet there are miracles that seem both right and wildly out of place (the floating icon) I'm kicked to the curb and I know this one is going to haunt me for days.supposedly this won the Russian Oscar...Not for all tastes...but manna from heaven for those it clicks with

Alexei Kalinov Unlike some people in modern Russia I am not a Monarchist, which means my view towards the historic Russian Monarchy is mostly negative.But the way Tsar Ivan (Vasilyevich) Groznyy, called the "terrible" in the Western world, was portrayed in this film is just absurd. The years in the film were 1565-66, Ivan IV was born in 1530, which means he should have been about 35 years old. Although the actor playing Ivan in the film was no younger than 50 years of age. Ivan in the film is too old.And that is only part of the problem of the film. Events portrayed in the film are either in the wrong year or simply never happened. The film presents the year 1565 as disastrous for Russia, Poland is successfully conquering the country and numerous military disasters have led Ivan to believe the Russian people are turning against him.Ivan himself is presented as a delusional psychopath that spends his time sitting alone speaking to "god". And when is not doing that he is finding people to torture and kill. He talks about Armageddon and that he believes it is near. His guards(the Oprichniki) wear dark and red clothing and look like some kind of Satan worshipers. And as the film progresses more and more people are killed or tortured in cruel ways, Ivan even instructs his men to build a massive torture exhibit where hundreds of people presumably were to be tortured at the same time.By the end of the film Ivan has become an Anti-Christ figure, his men are shown burning people alive and they visibly enjoy it. While the Russian Orthodox Church is opposed to him, numerous special effects "miracles" are shown to "prove" the Church is not just mythology. I have a suspicion that the actual Church was involved in the production of this film.It seems like only a Polish take over of Moscow can save Russia from the cruel tyrant.Ivan IV was not an angel, but he was not a psychopath like the one shown in the film. He could do cruel things, but today Russia owes its vast territory and influence thanks to the actions of Ivan Groznyy. I don't think he deserves to be shown as some kind of Anti-Christ, this is counter-productive for Russia's future.