(Review contains some spoilers!) I was hoping for a Stalingrad movie that was showed the hardship that both side went through as in the Stalingrad movie from 1993, but instead i got a love story in a war setting sprinkled with many heavy CGI effects.
Even though these days it's not possible of course to get bombers flying over a city and shot down, the movie hangs to much to the use of CGI and looks more like a showcase of what the company that supplied the CGI effects can do with their computers. It's like they made the effects first, than made a movie around it. The movie also is heavy saturated with slow motion effects, it felt like i was watching The Matrix in Stalingrad, i don't mind slow motion, but it was a bit too much to my taste. (Do we really have to have someone standing up from a bed walking to her window in slow motion?)
They made a good use of their budget to supply realistic sets, only thing that looked really out of place was the fake spray-on snow that seemed to stick to everything, nobody in the movie seemed to notice it was becoming winter and it was cold, if snow will stick to buildings and its surroundings, it has to be below freezing point.
The weapons used also look authentic, but the battlefield looks very empty when both sides were fighting, Stalingrad was the ground were the war turned for the Germans and Stalin had no intention at all to give up the city bearing his name. I don't know when the movie actually takes place, but when the Soviets started their counter offensive they had over 1,143,000 personnel present. But seeing there is snow coming down in the movie, this is either taking place before or after the winter of 1942. But still the movie made it looked like only a hand full of Russians held a entire street, and only 30 Germans were fighting against them.
But aside that, the story evolves around a girl that is discovered still living in her house turned to rubble and is being taken care for by five soldiers, the story is narrated by her son, who calls the five soldiers his five fathers. Another story beside this is a German officer, played by Thomas Kretschmann, a German actor who has played in many more WW2 related movies like the acclaimed Der Untergang(English title The Downfall), he has a so called love story with a Russian girl, a storyline we pretty much don't care for at all.
The rest of the cast is a pretty unknown cast, the woman who plays the 15 year old Russian girl is heavily miss-casted in my view, she is suppose to be 15, but in real life she is 26 year old and doesn't look anything near below the age of 20. But she holds up in her acting and so does the rest of the cast. But back to the story, the movie is pretty much 60% talk, 40% action, people with no patience will get bored quickly, the dialogs seem to go on and on.
SPOILER alert!
The movie ends in what makes no common sense to me, with the Russians calling in artillery on their position and everybody is dead except Katya, the Russian girl. Instead they could have just called in the artillery and fallen back to another Russian held position behind them.
But to be rap it up, the movie holds on too much to it's (really great looking) CGI effects, has too much dialog and a side storyline we couldn't care for at all. But the cast holds up their own when it comes to acting, the sets look realistic and the weaponry used authentic. But the ending lacked something, there is not even a single word mentioned about how the battle for Stalingrad eventually ended, how many soldiers and civilians died there, how it was the turning point for WW2, nothing! Just a big STALINGRAD in Russian in the screen.
Even though these days it's not possible of course to get bombers flying over a city and shot down, the movie hangs to much to the use of CGI and looks more like a showcase of what the company that supplied the CGI effects can do with their computers. It's like they made the effects first, than made a movie around it. The movie also is heavy saturated with slow motion effects, it felt like i was watching The Matrix in Stalingrad, i don't mind slow motion, but it was a bit too much to my taste. (Do we really have to have someone standing up from a bed walking to her window in slow motion?)
They made a good use of their budget to supply realistic sets, only thing that looked really out of place was the fake spray-on snow that seemed to stick to everything, nobody in the movie seemed to notice it was becoming winter and it was cold, if snow will stick to buildings and its surroundings, it has to be below freezing point.
The weapons used also look authentic, but the battlefield looks very empty when both sides were fighting, Stalingrad was the ground were the war turned for the Germans and Stalin had no intention at all to give up the city bearing his name. I don't know when the movie actually takes place, but when the Soviets started their counter offensive they had over 1,143,000 personnel present. But seeing there is snow coming down in the movie, this is either taking place before or after the winter of 1942. But still the movie made it looked like only a hand full of Russians held a entire street, and only 30 Germans were fighting against them.
But aside that, the story evolves around a girl that is discovered still living in her house turned to rubble and is being taken care for by five soldiers, the story is narrated by her son, who calls the five soldiers his five fathers. Another story beside this is a German officer, played by Thomas Kretschmann, a German actor who has played in many more WW2 related movies like the acclaimed Der Untergang(English title The Downfall), he has a so called love story with a Russian girl, a storyline we pretty much don't care for at all.
The rest of the cast is a pretty unknown cast, the woman who plays the 15 year old Russian girl is heavily miss-casted in my view, she is suppose to be 15, but in real life she is 26 year old and doesn't look anything near below the age of 20. But she holds up in her acting and so does the rest of the cast. But back to the story, the movie is pretty much 60% talk, 40% action, people with no patience will get bored quickly, the dialogs seem to go on and on.
SPOILER alert!
The movie ends in what makes no common sense to me, with the Russians calling in artillery on their position and everybody is dead except Katya, the Russian girl. Instead they could have just called in the artillery and fallen back to another Russian held position behind them.
But to be rap it up, the movie holds on too much to it's (really great looking) CGI effects, has too much dialog and a side storyline we couldn't care for at all. But the cast holds up their own when it comes to acting, the sets look realistic and the weaponry used authentic. But the ending lacked something, there is not even a single word mentioned about how the battle for Stalingrad eventually ended, how many soldiers and civilians died there, how it was the turning point for WW2, nothing! Just a big STALINGRAD in Russian in the screen.