User Reviews

It happens to many movies and this movie is no different. The book is better then the movie. In fact it is one of my favorite books. Russian Sci-Fi movies never had Hollywood class budgets so it is not surprising to see it less flashy then Star Wars. So the movie might lack visual effects but when you read the book you don't care about visual effects.

Now the spoilers(kind of): The movie (and the book) is NOT a space adventure. It is NOT a Sci-Fi detective story. It is about life of the people and how one event can change life of so many people. It is about what makes us human, how we look at unknown and what society is ready to do to individual people to keep everyone "safe". The action is set in the future but there is hardly anything would be different if it was at present days.

Another reviewer wrote that movie is not telling the reason for events. It is true but it is because the movie is only about the first book in the series. In the second book "Soft Mirrors" everything is explained but that is probably another 90 minutes (not 2 hours).

MOON RAINBOW came across to me like a Russian version of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, except made on a much smaller budget which gives it a grittier, less glossy, and more budget look. The tale is about a group of astronauts who encounter something mysterious in space, and it turns out to be an event which has life-changing consequences for all of them. Due to the budgetary constraints this is a human-focused story throughout, one that drags more than a little as it goes along. It doesn't help that there's never a real sense of a beginning, middle or end. There are some nice visuals but compare it to something like the Kubrick film and it comes off wanting.

Spoiler warning - not only about these comments, but about the movie as well. This movie can seriously spoil your evening (or, for that matter, any time of the day you spend watching it).

I saw the movie shortly after it was shot on an Eastern European TV, caught the beginning that was late at night. I don't even recall the details of the plot, but I remember that at the very beginning it became apparent that certain unusual forces (magnetic fields or something) showed up under certain circumstances (in presence of some events). I didn't really intend to watch the movie, but got curious about what the explanation would end up being.

After fighting sleepiness for what I now know was 88 minutes but certainly felt much longer (until I saw the IMDb page I was sure the movie was well over 2 hours long) - the solution that was presented was: certain unusual forces were demonstrated under certain circumstances - and they remain mysterious.

I felt cheated as we were told what had been obvious from the very beginning - and meanwhile I had wasted the sleep I needed badly.

I remembered this movie recently while attending a business course. As an exercise, we were presented with a business case and discussed it in length – doing role play, various analyzes etc. – only to be told in the end what was obvious from the beginning.