Furious Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Furious Blu-ray Movie Review

How do you say '300' in Russian?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 18, 2018

Sixty five million dollars may not sound exactly “cheap”, but by modern “epic film” standards, it’s a mere pittance. That may be one reason why 300, which according to some online sources cost about that much to produce, created such a stir among some bean counters if not all audiences and/or critics when the film was released, since it seemed to augur in a new era when live actors could be combined (relatively) seamlessly with computer generated environments. Going completely by what some may understandably think is dubious online data, it looks like Furious, another film that inserts (supposedly) live actors into CGI environments, managed to get produced for the kind of astoundingly small sum of around $6,000,000, an amount that really wouldn’t be that extreme for a so-called “small” independent film these days. Furious is, well, curious on a number of levels: it purports, much like 300, to be based on real history, but it takes a decidedly fantasy laden approach that is perhaps even further removed from “real life” than 300 felt like it was. Add to that the fact that I suspect many audiences further west than the Russian steppes will be even less aware of the underlying history of the tale than the were with regard to the Spartans and their nemeses in the Zach Snyder opus, and you end up with a film that is kind of silly on a number of levels but which provides some fleeting visual splendor that may appeal to “shiny object” fans (like yours truly).

While the general outlines of that story will be familiar to anyone who has indeed seen 300 — namely, an incoming force far outnumbering a valiant number of native fighters — there are some kind of odd accretions to the tale that struck me as not exactly helpful, though without a firm knowledge of the underlying folklore and/or folk facts, I can’t state authoritatively whether or not some of them are in fact based in actual history. The film begins with a group of soldiers traipsing through an impossibly beautiful forest, and already the CGI is so over the top that I literally thought for a moment that the entire film (i.e., the “humans”, too) were all the product of some over Red Bull-ed animator. Evapty Kolovrat is evidently the young son of one of these warriors, though he has a hard time even managing to walk, let alone pretend to be a fighter with his father’s cohorts. When Mongol warriors attack, all of Kolovrat’s elders are killed, and even Kolovrat gets attacked. Suddenly, though, the film shifts forward several years to find Kolovrat (Ilya Malakov) now an adult, married to Nastya (Polina Chernyshova), whom he had gotten away from the opening scene maelstrom when she was a little girl. But here’s the odd part — Kolovrat suffers from short term amnesia, which means he starts every day from scratch, in a kind of weird plot point that will of course recall (no pun intended) Memento.

Kolovrat is convinced a Mongol horde (as it is repeatedly referred to in the film) is imminent, though his warnings are initially taken as foolish when an arriving force turns out to be friends. But of course Kolovrat is right, and there is an overwhelming congregation of Mongol warriors camped clearly in sight beyond the fortress city walls. Kolovrat is one of a small group sent to try to work some kind of deal with Batu Khan (Aleksandr Choi), though it probably goes without saying that if a deal were to have happened, there really wouldn’t have been a battle to base a film around.

There are a number of subplots woven into this wending tale, some featuring a number of supporting characters, some of whom seem to be there for comedy relief, though one wonders if the well known Russian tendency toward melancholy means that the “humor” here is a bit hard to find at times. There are kids who need to be rescued, horrible winter weather that needs to be overcome, and an feeling of helplessness that there simply aren’t enough “good guys” to outfight the “bad guys”.

The narrative arc here is more or less predictable, with the film ending with the same kind of heroism in the face of hopelessness that informed 300. But there’s simply not a lot of “there” there in this film, despite some often nice looking animation. The acting is haphazard and never very convincing, and some of the production design choices, including Batu Khan’s Ru Paul-esque getup (including lots of eye makeup), seem questionable at best.

Furious Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Furious is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. The overall look here has the same kind of ubiquitous softness with regard to backgrounds that seems inseparable from a lot of CGI heavy productions. There are some very appealing locales presented, and the palette occasionally manages to warm beyond the understandably ice cold blues and whites that fill the screen a lot of the time, but detail levels in the backgrounds are variable at best and minimal at worst. That said, the detail levels on practical elements like costumes and, you know, faces can be quite good. There is more of the banding that seems to afflict Well Go USA releases, but I have to say some of the most noticeable is actually in the included trailers rather than the main feature, so that at least is a plus.

Furious Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Furious features Russian and English tracks in either DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or Dolby Digital 2.0. I personally recommend staying away from the English dub, since there's really no huge material difference in the overall mix between it and the Russian mix, while the disconnect between lip movements and uttered dialogue in the English version adds a somewhat surreal ambience to the proceedings that I found a little funny. The film has the requisite nicely done surround activity in the big action set pieces, and there's consistent engagement of the surrounds due to the many outdoor scenes where ambient environmental sounds are well placed and frequently quite immersive. Dialogue and score resonate clearly throughout the presentation, and there are no issues with damage or distortion.

Furious Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Russian Trailer (1080p; 1:59)


• English Trailer A (1080p; 1:59)


• English Trailer B (1080p; 2:04)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the supplements have been authored to follow one another automatically. After the trailers for this film play, the disc then moves on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those other trailers also play automatically at disc boot up.

Furious Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Furious evidently failed to connect even with Russian audiences, and so I'm not quite sure how eager those unacquainted with this particular nook and/or cranny of "history" will take to this fanciful film. While the CGI offers a few passing pleasures, the narrative is kind of clunky and performances on the iffy side. Technical merits are generally solid (especially the audio) for those considering a purchase.