Reception
The Inhabited Island was met with mixed reviews. Most praised the film for being surprisingly faithful to the novel. Some praised the film's visual effects, while others criticized the work of director and editor. Mir Fantastiki review called the film a "chaotic mash of visual, dramatical and musical components, each of which separately has quite high quality". "The movie scatters into a mosaic of spectacular images, that don't comprise the consistent image of the world", agrees Total DVD
The film was a relative commercial failure. Despite grossing around $30 million from two parts summarily and ranking among the top-grossing films of Russia's modern cinema, it didn't repay its budget of $36 mln. The movie was released on DVD very shortly after it exited theatres, in the hope of covering the debt.
Boris Strugatsky, the only one of the book's co-authors who lived to see the film, said the film is a "directors' success", noting its faithfulness to the novel. He praised the work of Serebryakov (Strannik), Bondarchuk (Umnik) and Garmash (Zef), but expressed disappointment over the work of Kutsenko (Vepr'), Mikhalkova (Ordi Tader) and Merzlikin (Funk). He noted Stepanov as one of the biggest success of the film, saying that "Maxim Kammerer is exactly as we imagined him".
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