Post
by B Hellqvist » Mon Aug 18, 2014 1:09 pm
The third best Stalingrad movie since 1993! OK, there's only been three...
Absolutely dreadful. Poor script, unengaging characters, slow motion in every effing battle scene (Peckinpah, come back!), forgettable score... Only bright points were the sets and uniforms. 3/10.
Some silly stuff (slight spoilers ahead):
- Soviet soldiers charging German positions with their uniforms aflame
- Evil German officer sacrificing a (supposedly) Jewish mother and child before a battle
- Soviet artilleryman bouncing a 37 mm round off a tank wreck, hitting German Nebelwerfer rockets
- The usual hand-to-hand fighting prevalent in Russian war movies
- The Soviet officer upbraiding a sniper about shooting Germans fetching water
- German tank company with tanks side by side in urban area, forming big fat target for Soviet bombers
...to name but a few. I had to watch the factory attack scene in "Stalingrad" (1993) to wash away the drivel I had seen. Now there's a properly directed battle scene, with more intensity in eight minutes than the entire Russian effort. A wasted 2½ hours.
The only marginally interesting character was Thomas Kretschmann's captain, but then he's a veteran of Stalingrad. It's quite a different role, though, compared to his previous foray to the ruins of Stalingrad.