August. Eighth (2012)

What makes it different from others?

Memorable, crazy movie

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I haven't seen many Russian movies, so I don't have the background of some of the other reviewers. But I found the political propaganda element of this movie tiresome. The Wikipedia article about the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 states that the shelling was started by the Russian-backed, South Ossetian separatists, and that the ethnic cleansing during the war was also done by South Ossetians as opposed to Georgians. As I watched the film, I got tired of seeing Georgian soldiers without faces- wearing black face masks and goggles to remove the human element. All the Russian soldiers had their faces uncovered throughout the movie, and showed all the different emotional shades of their unwavering bravery, hulk-like strength, and a deep compassion for children, puppies, and hot women. I think the take-away from this movie was supposed to be something like "Outnumbered and with the odds stacked against them, the Russians somehow managed to pull out a victory from the Russo-Georgian war, which they were forced to intervene in because of a looming humanitarian crisis and the inhumane brutality of the Georgian military." While this message was entertaining at first, by the end it was just plain irritating. I enjoy subtlety. The more overt the propaganda element got, the more angry I was at Russia by the end of the film, for lying to me and for being a bully with a massive modern military that invades other countries, annexes them, and then lies to everyone involved with such blatant lies that it leaves you utterly bewildered as to what to do about the gross injustice of it all. One of the things about American propaganda films, such as "Lone Survivor," is that it at least ATTEMPTS to tell the truth from both sides of the coin. There is no way America could get away politically with its wars if the movies didn't tell the truth about them to assuage our conscience (c.f. "Green Zone"). Apparently Russia not only wages unjust wars, but its movies about them are just plain lies.I gave this 3-star humanitarian travesty of a film 6 stars for the special effects. The combat scenes are believable and entertaining. Seeing the Russian military in action makes me glad we're not at war with them.

. . . to appreciate the difference between a central European modern-day war movie that is balanced and NOT designed to Demonize one side compared to AUGUST EIGHTH, where every incident EXCEPT one token gesture at the end appears coldly calculated to make one half of a conflict non-human (think the Orcs in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, or the aliens in the ALIEN series of sci-fi flicks). AUGUST EIGHTH concerns the trouble with Ossetia, which used to be in the U.S.S.R. After reading the 28-page, single-spaced Wikipedia article on this 2008 "war," it's clear the roots can be traced back to Adam and Eve. The scenery where some of this conflict occurred is beautiful, and the CGI is more realistic and amazing then what you would get from a FAST & FURIOUS or DIE HARD feature. The endangered son Tyoma's obsession with robots, which he conflates with his dad, also comes to the screen without Hollywood overkill, but with lots of pizazz. Tyoma's heroic super mom Kseniya (played by Svetlana Ivanova, along the lines of a much younger and more athletic Julia Roberts) is one of the most memorable characters of the year, as is her main savior among the Russian troops, "reconaissance" man Lyokha. However, there's plenty enough heroes here for the Russian side without frequent cuts to a Putin-like "President" character risking America's wrath in the Kremlin war room by deciding to go "all in" and attack an area vacated by 1,000 U.S. military war game allies hours earlier. Nor is it necessary to put EVERY ONE of hundreds of anti-Russian fighters in black face masks to lessen their equal standing as human beings. As Tyoma's "Cosmoboy" would say to his robot protectors, "Aza Nisi Mazamaravati Chandrika!"

This movie is supposed to be a patriotic movie about the events happened in August 2008. First of all, it is totally unclear to me, why a Russian movie was shot in a Hollywood blockbuster style. Russian cinema is able of producing its own solid motion pictures without copying foreign movies. Secondly, as seen from the first scene of the movie, there were people able of making good computer graphics involved in production. A young boy imagines a robot fighting forces of evil. The total disappointment is that later in the movie these computerized characters appear so often, that the movie genre slowly deviates from drama and military to family. Many times at the end of the movie I wished that finally monsters disappeared and I could understand what was really going on. From my point of view, it was absolutely unnecessary to include that much computer graphics, it just takes attention away. Thirdly, some events are shown in a very impressive way, but their plausibility is low. Why would Georgians use very expensive missiles to shoot single targets like a bus, a truck, or even people tracking them using cellular phone signal (is that even possible?). Georgian armed forces can't afford that. Before Americans made some investments in the armed forces, Georgia had pretty much what was left from the times when Georgia was a part of the USSR. The scene with the bus splitting into halves could make some movies like "Final destination" look pale, but, again, it looks so unreal! An actor named Vladimir Vdovichenkov played the president. He is a nice actor, with many roles in action movies, but he wasn't the president of the Russian Federation back in 2008! Lots of movies star actors resembling American presidents, why couldn't the same be done in this movie? Fourthly, the boys behaviour needs some medical attention. Frightened, stressed, he doesn't call mom for help, as a normal kid would do. Only when his mother pretends to be a robot (and he pretends to be "Kosmoboy"), he agrees to communicate using MMS messages on the cellular phone. There are some very solid and dynamic combat episodes withing the movie, nicely shot. But that's about it. Overall, this is a very light and not serious movie with annoyingly too much emphasis on computer graphics. I think the director intended for movie watchers to empathize the characters, but the actors play is lame, so I felt nothing. If you want to see a good movie about the 5-day war in August of 2008th, a movie that creates a proper atmosphere, watch Olympius Inferno.

The plot tells a story of young Muscovite Ksenia who sends her son to Caucasus to be with his father, her Ossetian ex-husband. Suddenly the war breaks out in the region, and Ksenia has to fly down there to rescue her child. Fayziev said that his heroine isn't suited for anything but mundane household dramas. Yet she has to go through the war experience and can't let herself get tired, refuse or complain, because she doesn't have a choice.The girl is annoying in the beginning, a bad mom in a miniskirt who cares only about her boyfriend. Then the character develops, she grows to be a decent mother who even understands how to cope with a breakdown of her son, who starts to hide from war in a world of imaginary robots. The film reminded me of Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" because of the kid's way to protect himself from terror. The film has quite a crew: talented young actors, screenwriter Michael Lerner, who worked for 20 years as a war correspondent for Newsweek, Oscar-nominated film editor Dennis Virkler, Oscar-awarded sound producer Bob Bimmer ("Speed" and "Gladiator") and talented computer graphics coordinator Sergei Nevshupov ("Lord of The Rings" and "Avatar"). Animation consultant on the set was Alexander Dorogov, who's known for his work with Walt Disney Feature Animation. Fayziev said he initially planned foreign professionals on key production roles, "so that they showed us how to do decent movies correctly and to speed up the process."We are used here to prefer Hollywood movies to local, because the latter are less visual. Well, this one pulls the image pretty well and might be the first made on such a level in Russia.