Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Lucia Ferros Mortis I have spent intense 2 hours watching this stuff. I know how everyone hates it when there's too much humane in a blockbuster, but the whole character building is one of the trademarks of a good Russian movie. I grew up watching Russian military movies thanks to my father and to tell you honestly this whole movie just breaks my camaraderie meter. The plot could have been more original, but let's be honest the fighting scenes are god damn awesome, the characters are well written, the choice of casting (I knew each one of these actors from TV films or series or movies since I was a small girl) is simply tremendous. I felt like throwing things and crying over the whole Lyuba/Spam send scene, only Russian movies can make you feel completely attached to a character even if the character is a tremendous a-hole. The whole Resident Evil reference if anything is maybe over-exploited, but I wouldn't have it any other way. So, this movie is awesome, but I don't suggest it if you are not the kind of person who likes to know the background of characters and military thematic.

Mit_pl Very much like some of the other viewers I had higher expectations from this movie. The plot is not exactly what you would call original, whereas (sadly) it is a pretty common thing in contemporary cinema, I have to say that this film is absolutely packed with clichés.A secret lab in the middle of nowhere, a deadly virus on the loose, a special group of tough guys (plus one tough chick and a not so tough doctor) send in to investigate....I am not going to list all of the clichés in the movie, it would be a waste of time. I would like to point out a very big similarity in the film to a book called The Invincible by Stanisław Lem. The virus which got out of control in the lab has very similar symptoms to the one mentioned in the book (although I am not 100% if it was a virus at the moment). People loosing their humanity, becoming animals, being able to follow only their basic instincts - same thing happened in the book. Is it a copy? I am not sure, it is questionable, however, the tooth marks found on a bar of soap (exact same thing described in the book) depicted in the movie make me 99% sure that this motive has been copied. Talking about copies, one of the gunfight scenes has been copied from equilibrium. You've got your clichés and your copies, and you've also got you're sort of die hard, how many times can I kick you in the face with a solider boot before you start bleeding scenes. Not to forget cutting out a new door in a concrete wall of an underground lab with a mini gun and shooting at a bulletproof glass door and not getting killed by the ricochets. The movie is very foreseeable, the directing is a little pretentious, acting mediocre - at most. Despite of the facts mentioned above, it is fun to watch on a how not to make a movie basis. Just one more thing, be sure to have the two parts before watching, because the first one is a very long intro.

eksellentz After seeing Night Watch & Day Watch, Volkodav and others masterpieces of modern Russian action oriented cinema I was quite disappointed with this flick. Movie was very well presented with a brilliant PR over the net and other news medias, but the movie was a total disaster. Part 1 didn't offer anything. But a promise of more and better action story was given for the film 2. After watching the second one the disappointment was complete. Acting wasn't good, storyline non-existent. Good filmed fighting scenes, but that's it.... The movie didn't have anything to offer and watching is a total waste of time...

Barvinok The two major disappointments when I finished watching this movie in the theater, was the plot background and the fact that it is split in two parts. Well, I understand the marketing principles and why not intrigue viewers enough to encourage them to go to the second part, but to me, it is a bit unfair. Like you go in the restaurant only to find an appetizer and to be told that other dishes will be available few days later.The plot background is far worse than just non-original. A secret underground lab, a disaster in the form of deadly virus turning everyone there into zombies (if not killing), a group of highly professional SWAT-like heroes sent to investigate, an unwelcome member of the group, behaving strangely and suspicious, a female member who does not have any femininity at all, etc -- all possible clichés of that genre are undoubtedly here. Too strong resemblance to both of "Resident Evil"s, strong resemblance to "Doom", "Phantom Force", "Dragon Fighter", "Alien 2" isn't just annoying, but you can actually predict what would happen in next few minutes.The special effects is nothing special. In 21st century, it's unlikely to impress viewers with the zombie jumping on walls like Spiderman; the only hope that this hole will be filled with the second part of the movie.The bright side is a character personalities and a lots of humor, somewhat specific to the ex-USSR reality; like the military facility operator surfing the Internet in MSIE right on the control board of high-tech military radar or something; like digging the rare metals out of outdated electronic equipment in the middle of the mission, etc. Not only almost all characters try to mock and sometimes annoy each other with every single sentence, they actually succeed, and a classic love triangle helps a lot.I'll give this movie 3 out of 10 for characters and humor, hoping that the rest of "what I think should be in the good movie" will be included in the second part.