The inhabited island : Dark Planet

Language : Russian

Year of release : 2008

Run time : 2h

Genre : Sci Fi / Action / Dystopia

Cast : Pyotr Fyodorov, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Yuliya Snigir

The movie, translated as Prisoners of Power in English, is based on the Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 1969 novel of the same name.

The two part movie was directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk, who also plays in the movie.

The year is 2157, humans explore space, and live on other planets. Maxim is a space explorer from Moscow, who when the movie opens talks to his grandmother about their daily lives, and how he is skipping his exams and stole his grandfather’s watch. He tells his grandma he’ll be back in two days for the exams, but he crash lands on an unknown planet, and his space ship explodes.

Walking around the desert, he is caught by the military police (not before he sees creatures looking like werewolves), who doesn’t believe Maxim to be from space (as they are told they live inside a sphere, not on the outside of it), and send him to a mental institution (probably also because he’s too damn happy!). At the mental institution they take images from his head, which Max later finds out they put in movies, that people watch as entertainment, although they know it’s from what they call “degenerates” minds.

Caporal Gai Gaal is waiting for his travel papers to be released, and he is tasked with escorting Max. While waiting, what they call radiation emits, and they all start acting the same like in a trance doing a dance, reciting the same lines. Max is immune, while others seem to be in excruciating pain, crawling on the floor and foaming at the mouth.

While traveling, one of the towers, which the population thinks to be for the antiballistic defence system, is destroyed, and they barely make it alive, as it happens right when their convoy passes by it.

Max is very strong, learns fast, is immune to the “radiation”, and is a good fighter. For that reason, quite a few people in power want him, to do research on him.He can also heal very fast, although sh0t 7 times in the chest! Did I mention he’s from Moscow, Russia, Earth?!

After he escapes the man who came to take him to the research facility, as he had a seizure when the clock stroke 10, he wanders through the marketplace, and sees Rada. The two like each other, and he ends up at her place, after Max deals with a guy who was looking for a fight in the restaurant Rada works at. Max finds out Rada is Gai Gaal’s sister.

Gai wanted to be a soldier, to protect the people from the degenerates, as he thinks, without the towers they destroy, they’ll be annihilated within minutes by the country’s enemies. He recommends Maxim to become part of the guardians, in the Fight Brigade. Maxim trains, and due to his abilities, he is accepted.

They have a raid at a place they think “degenerates” live, and apprehend normal looking people, fact which surprises Max. They are questioned, tortured, and condemned to death. Max is ordered to k1ll them, but he can’t, so his superior shoots him, thinking he k1lled him, but unless he is shot in the head, he’s fine.

Max finds out from the “degenerates” he didn’t k1ll, the “radiation” happens twice a day, at 10 o’clock in the morning, and at 10 in the evening. And its not what people think, it’s a mind control device that emits all the time. The population is trained to hate the degenerates for they try to destroy and even destroy some of the towers, without knowing these “degenerates” are the ones who can’t be mind controlled and are trying to free them all!

Some of these “degenerates” who can’t be mind controlled, and have seizures when the “radiator” emits have positions of power, one of them being the son of the ruler, Umnik, the state prosecutor. The ruler and his sons are known as the Unknown Fathers.

The ruling class consists of the same family, and all the sons are afraid of their father, who looks their age, but who k1lls them if he’s not pleased with them! I honestly don't know if he truly is their father, or they just call him as such.

I personally enjoyed the movie. I liked the world created, the way the movie was shot, the set design, the costumes, and the fight scenes.

The military all have the same Mohawk haircuts. For some unknown reason, Max doesn’t get one.

The dystopia reminded me of movies like Equilibrium.

The acting was good. I thought Pyotr was exaggerating his reactions at times, but maybe his character was supposed to be on the edge and angry or maybe just passionate when speaking about certain things,meant to suggest the power of the mind control.

The visual effects, at first they looked computer made, but got better.

The soundtrack was good.

The movie received praises for being faithful to the novel, the visual style and the social commentary, but got negative reviews for its casting, editing and even directing. Boris Strugatsky, one of the authors of the book, was mostly pleased with how the movies looked, stating the leading actor was just as how they imagined their character.

You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link, but it only has Romanian translations :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8i7vfe

Rating : Worth a watch !