The Guardians are a team of Soviet superheroes created during the Cold War but hidden until they’re needed in our time. Each member of the team represents a different nationality of the USSR and each of their powers reflect either a tradition of the people of Russia and its associated countries. It’s really simple why I watched this: a bear uses a machine gun.

The Guardians of the Patriot Program are Ursus the bear-man, the super fast blade master Khan, the man who can control the earth named Ler and Xenia, a woman who turns invisible and can become water. They come back to battle their creator, Professor August Kuratov, who has become power mad and is taking over Russian.

This is the kind of movie a twelve-year-old boy would make, but then his parents would then make him include long talky parts that he’d advise you fast-forward so that you can watch a bear fight tanks.

There was originally a plan to make a sequel to this film, but it bombed badly and has been selected as one of Russia’s worst movies ever. I don’t have much experience with Russian films, but this didn’t seem that bad.

You can watch this on Tubi and Amazon Prime.