Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Ron Chow I stumbled upon the DVD version of this film and, being a moderate fan of Russian cinema, made the time investment to watch it.The film was slow, and some takes were, in my opinion, unnecessarily long. The hand-held, back-and-forth capture of the boy throwing stones at a heap of junk strained my eyes, and I found it annoying and unnecessary.However, the film also has the typical merits of a low-budget, personal film which does have a story to tell. The acting was fine, the story simple and yet believable, and the shots were visually pleasing.This is by no means a great film, but I will recommend it to anyone who is fond of Russian cinema, and has the patience and a desire to have glimpses of modern Russia.

writers_reign This is doing the Russian Tourist Board no favors at all, portraying as it does a seemingly endless drab landscape punctuated by decaying buildings both domestic and commercial and populated by equally drab eccentrics. To call it slow-paced would be to call sloths sprinters but that is not necessarily a deficit. 90 per cent of the shots begin as Extra Wide taking in all the colorless terrain and occasionally introducing movement via people and, even more occasionally, traffic. Although shot in color the landscape remains resolutely grey. There's also a penchant for holding a shot for long moments after the characters have exited and in this it resembles Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Nevertheless we find ourselves watching the father and son as they make their very slow way to the Crimea having, we are told, started from Moscow. Along the way we learn, or discover, that the father is a recovering alcoholic and that the Koktebel to which he is taking his son no longer exists, at least not under that name, a metaphor for lives that must change or disappear. The film has to be carried by the two principals but there is decent support from a railway worker, a teenage girl, a householder and a doctor with no patients. It's not going to make a fortune but films like this deserve to be seen as a counterpoint to the formulaic.

Scorching MILD SPOILERSRoads to Koktebel is the story of a father and his son who travel to Koktobel in the Crimean region after a tragedy in their family. As they travel from place to place they meet many people and learn how to survive through their journey.I was expecting so much more from this film as there have been quite a lot of good reviews for the said film. Unfortunately I found the basic pacing of the film very slow and some of the scenes really were dragging and seemed disjointed. The story was ordinary which I think contributed to the nature of the film. The theme of fatherhood and family is always a good platform to make a good story. However the writers were unable to do that. I liked the performances of the actors especially the young son who was pretty good. It's a shame that the material I felt was too poor and all of his good work went down the drain.

aania@mail.ru Koktebel' is the film that could impress those who love Russia, Russians and who wants to know more about that country. It could help to understand "mysterious Russian soul". But it is sometimes too slow and detailed. It got the Silver Georgy on the 25th Moscow International Film festival.