User reviews

The plot is quite cliche for fairy tale movies and it reminds me of Disney's Brave and Rapunzel. However, I'm pretty much impressed by its breathtaking animation (having said that this is the very first Ukrainian animated movie that I've ever watched).

I for one welcome smaller companies (or at least lesser known ones) to produce animated films. Despite the main female being obviously modeled after Anna from Frozen (with a hint of Shrek's Fiona) the character designs are unique and very cute- let you're children decide for themselves if they like this movie.

I sat down to watch "The Stolen Princess: Ruslan and Ludmila" with my 9 year old son, and it turned out that this 2018 animated movie was great surprise. And I am quite glad that I did sit down to watch it.

The storyline turned out to be entertaining for both me and my son, so the movie has an appeal to adults and children alike. I especially enjoyed it because of its fantasy setting, and there was a lot of fun stuff to be seen throughout the course of the storyline. I've been a fan of the fantasy genre in all manners of media, so I was loving this fantasy setting found in "The Stolen Princess: Ruslan and Ludmila".

The art style and CGI was very good, and I found it to be up to level of what you'd expect from Pixar or Disney. So that was highly impressive and enjoyable, and it definitely added a lot of flavor to the movie.

The characters in the movie were nicely fleshed out and you quickly felt at home in the storyline right there alongside with Ruslan and his friends. And of course the animal companions were absolutely hilarious and lovable. The villain too, of course, was also lovable and being the stereotypical archetype villain that you see in many animated movies.

This being an animated movie, then there was some music and singing involved as well, although not overly done as you'd see in Disney movies. Personally I don't care much for singing segments in cartoons, because that is not why I sit down to watch the animated movie.

This little gem, by Animagrad, an animation studio based in Kiev, requires a multi-region player to watch in the US, but is well worth it. The Stolen Princess is very loosely based on Pushkin's early poem Ruslan and Ludmila, itself based on Russian folklore about Kievan Rus. Its visuals draw on Disney films of the past decade, in a light-hearted, hilarious way, with its humor rooted more in character buffoonery than satire. It also depicts plenty of Eastern European/Orthodox themes, giving it a distinctive feel. The animation is a bit clunky and exaggerated at times, but this may be part of a strange effect I hadn't seen before (except in Pinocchio, I guess!)-the characters move like puppets. Despite the war, Animagrad released another movie this year, Mavka: The Forest Song, but unfortunately this doesn't look like it's available in English or released on DVD or blu ray.

Right now, On my Mind, I am rounding around only one thing. Which is, Will there be a Second Part? When? I can't wait! Best movie ever. I haven't Seen any Animated Fantasy Movies better than this one in Years. Reminds me of Tangled.

Not bad graphics, though not a new story but still also not a bad general ideas to use a folklore. But the way it is served... it is bad. Very bad. The meticulous attempt to imitate the Disney style of "funny chaos on the screen" in this cartoon is shown as an attempt to make from the first-grader's drawings as an expensive masterpiece. And putting knowledge of modern slang and other words in the cartoon about Middle Ages looks disgusting in both Disney and this cartoons... Oh yes, and I hate stupid characters like "his friend".

............. The first thoughts I had with this movie. Let's talk about it's good points: the ideas, and many present themselves well. What caught me was this scene with food attacking the princess. I won't lie simple scenes throughout the movie were actually impressive, but they only survived as solo ideas, and not so much as a complete film. Problems.... animation felt stiff at times, some shots were odd compositions, and the characters felt like plastic more than like soft skin. Pacing sometimes was awkward.

In the first 15 minutes of the film they did a bit of copy and paste from Disney's Aladdin. (I almost never accuse anyone of that unless it is THAT obvious, sorry it kinda was)

At the 20 minute mark things did get better, but by then you're audience is probably turned away, or very uncomfortable.

Sorry, but I'm hoping that Wizart will have better luck with this fairytale in 2020.

5 points only for good graphics and effects. Scripts and scenario are have to be revised. Plot is not brand new, but something different from similar others. There are a lot of unnecessary scenes that can be sciped. But overall, by comparison with other ukrainian animations it is worth seeing. Ultimatelly it is created for children, and my child was satisfied, and even truly laughed several times.

Am I the only one who feels this film really has a part of Aladdin and sleeping beauty and also the princess looks like Anna from Frozen?

The story is quite simple. When I started to watch this, I didn't have that much expectations. I thought it looks a fine animation. So, I watched it. When the film ended, I feel like it wasn't that good and wasn't that bad.

The reason why I gave 8 stars is because of animation. The animation is great. Although it isn't produced by Disney, it looks like it's production. All in all, yeah, it's enjoyable.

Ouch. I managed to stomach about 10 minutes of this before hitting the STOP button. But then again, I'm not a 4 year old. I agree with mariamulmasova... this will likely be "painful to watch"... and unlike some of the glowing reviews here, I'm not Ukranian so am not going to upvote this just because of the nationality of the film team.

The animation is decently done. The script didn't have a decent spot of humor in it (at least the segment I managed to watch). If you don't catch the audience in the first 5 minutes you've lost them. This just got worse as it went along, and about the second time they depicted some guy picking his nose I realized this was not the movie for me... or probably most adults. I strongly suspect many children would eject this groaner and move on to something with a bit more wit and viewer savvy.

This movie is underrated. My 5 yo enjoyed it and laughed out loud, and me with him. It's witty, easy going and graphically beautiful. Perfect for a kid, as it should be. Not every movie for kids should be highly educational. Sometimes it's enough just to be fun. Let the kids be kids.

A lot of reviewers are going to compare this with Disney. Which I can understand why, they use a similar animation style and storyline. There are parts that are very predictable and maybe could use a little more character building on the main guy.

That aside, one must remember this is from a smaller studio outside of the billions of dollars spent on the American industry.

Found the film on Tubi which is great for watching indie films and foreign films that you otherwise would never have heard about. A lot of movies are duds, but this one almost has a Pixar level of magic to it. The plot and character development could use a little bit more work, but the comedic relief and branching away from damsel in distress while not belittling the male lead is spot on. This is how you should show both a strong male and female lead in movies.

I would definitely recommend this movie to families looking for a film.

Animation style is Disney level.

Music is done as good background music during scenes instead of musicals.

Voice acting fits the characters perfectly.

The male lead is a charming theater actor who makes a few mistakes throughout the movie as he's blinded by love of a female lead who is a brave princess who wanted to search for adventure and is capable of protecting herself.

Some of the best animation I have seen, sadly it stops there. If there is such a thing as sliders to regulate things like characters, stereotypes, hand gestures while creating the rest of the film everyone is set to max! Every personality is massively overdone. Every character type is the same, so much so I got to halfway through and left. Honestly, I only stayed that long as I was with someone and was far to embarrassed I dragged them along to this utter pile of whatever. So disappointed with themakers they seemed to have lost the plot. I wonder if they employed a bucket load of millennials a while ago and this is the result?

Think of Shrek and Zootopia these films grabbed audiences old and young very soon. This fails to interest either after a sort time, it's a good try, but fails to involve you with the characters.

Best Ukrainian animated cartoon in 2018. I am proud of the team that made this movie. I like all the voices of Ukrainian celebrities, especially Sergiy Prytula

Bad animation, bad script, cringy humor. Went to watch this with my little sister and it was the most painful movie experience ever.

This is a very lighthearted movie, good for the moments when all you want to see is a simple, colorful and funny story to keep you away from worries. It's definitely meant for children from the way the events flow. I watched the English dubbed version so I can't say anything about the original voice acting. The English version was enjoyable. I especially liked the humor, the light jokes (I'm a fan of decent jokes), the overflow of expressions on the characters' faces and their gestures. The animation reminded me of Disney's Rapunzel.

I've seen quite a lot of negative reviews here that I'm really glad I didn't read them before watching and just decided to give it a try. Really, this is meant to be a light and sweet story, so if you're looking for things like strong character development, intense action, heavy story, etc, then this might not be for you. Try Young Justice or Batman movies or something else. This is for kids to have fun and for adults to enjoy something that reminds of classic fairy tales. Personally, I'd love to watch more like this!

Hats off to the animation team. But the plot is a mix of the popular animations in past - shrek, rapunzel, brave... If you look closely you can actually see the similarity between the characters, scenes and colors they used. Anyway enjoyed the designs & animations.

Nice cartoon for children and adults. Picture, story and voices are amazing!

Who even makes movies like these - storyline zero, brain zero

I am 14, And I very much enjoyed this movie, you could tell that this is a Ukrainian production because it is much more enlightening and fantastical. This is a very unique movie, and I give it a huge thumbs up. Great job Ukraine!!!!

Why I waste my time. It fill very bad . most disporting movie.

I wont beat around the bush: this film is terrible. One of the worst, in fact. I might seem like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. I usually don't get mad about mediocre children's movies. But this is a monster that should be killed and mounted.

I could be talking about the plot or characters but they matter not. This is not a story someone wanted to tell, this is a soulless product someone crafted to make money.

The movie is basically ALL the Disney movies mushed together without any rhyme or reason. You get ALL the overused clichés, ALL the way-too-familiar faces and designs, ALL the simple and dumb twists and turns and "morals". Only here, they have no footing in the movie. The characters sound like robots, reciting terribly written parody-summaries of every bad fairy-tale adaptation, and none of them have any kind of personality beyond that. Scene comes after scene, all of them already done in Disney and Dreamworks movies, but here they seem to make no sense or meaning, the are just empty, meaningless setpieces.

The whole film feels like it's been made by aliens, who just cannot grasp our human way of thinking and feeling, or a particularly dumb AI. The closest analogy would be those repulsing youtube videos, with "pregnant Elsa from frozen singing nursery rhymes"-like title. If you're not familiar with those, they are zero-effort, computer generated garbage, that your toddler might come across and click for their title - thus making good money for them. Unfortunately, these videos, are either deliberately disturbing, or just nonsensical, surreal nonsense, clearly made by a computer, or a lunatic to rip you off.

And I have to say the same thing about this movie. I'm thoroughly disgusted. The are either cynical beyond belief, or so out of touch, it's bordering on being a sociopath.

Anyway, they don't deserve your hard earned money and the invaluable time you could be spending with your kids doing practically anything else. If you respect them and yourself, you keep away from this movie.