User reviews

As others have stated here what we though we were going to get with this film was finally an epic film about the battle of Stalingrad on the scale of the likes of A Bridge Too Far - Unfortunately of the three big budgeted movies made of this battle (The other two being the somewhat mishandled Enemy At The Gates and the Excellent German Stalingrad film) this is the worst, which is a shame as it had so much potential.

A group of Russian soldiers find themselves hanging onto a junction house blocking the way to the river which they must defend at all costs, and the Germans occupy the street across from them and continually fail to take it. The Russians all fall for the same girl, Katya, who is the only civilian survivor in the house. The German semi-senior officer (Kretchman) finds himself falling for a Russian woman who reminds him of his dead wife. After a promising start the film settles into over stated Russian melodrama with a huge intrusive score bashing its way into almost every scene making the moments in the film when its actually needed less effective. The film is narrated by the off spring of one of the main characters but I can't but wonder if this was an after thought to actually fill in for the lack of character that everyone seems to possess. Any real meant to fill out the characters bones is really missing from the script and while the acting is not at fault here the blame must lay with the writing and over concept here. True, by this time in the war, men are reduced to all but shadows of their former selves and having them revealed to be more human in fragile moments works at times and is one of the films few strengths but its not enough to save the film from being predictable, hollow and at times frankly boring.

What is out standing about the film is the VFX and Production design which is really first rate. The costumes and details of the period are incredibly accurate and everyone looks like they have been through several years of war already. the look of the film feels great but this cannot save the films many weak points. The Germans are all fairly one dimensional bad guys while the Russians are a little more redeemable but most of their back story always comes in the form of narration and not in their actual actions or dialogue. Some of the characters are a little more interesting than others but on the whole they're a pretty forgettable bunch. The big ending is rather an anti climax and there is no real pay off other than we know someone survived and had a kid who went on to tell the tale of their five fathers, being five characters in this film. (Even though at one point there's clearly six but never mind!)

The battle itself isn't put into any kind of historical context in the film in terms of the impact it had on the war or the change of history that followed. I mean this might as well have taken place in Kharkov or Rostov, save for the shots of the river, it really could have been anywhere, but we're reminded its Stalingrad because of some statues.

Films like A Bridge Too Far, The Longest Day and even the Historically inaccurate but far more watchable Battle Of The Bulge work because they tell the story of a large sweeping battle from beginning to end with and still manage to keep you interested with real characters and interesting moments. Here we have a film that can't make up its mind if its an action film or a love story - it tries to be both and succeeds at neither.

A shameful waste as the talent was clearly there.

Actually, this film MUST not have its name. There is nothing about Stalingrad battle... Yes, cute pictures how burned Soviet soldiers attacking German positions and slow-motion hand-to-hand battles looks nice, but that is nothing related to real history of this battle.

In terms of scale the film does not give the answer at least about one local engagement in Stalingrad in WW2, especially if take into account that there were a lot of such events. Heroes behaves really strange and illogical sometimes. Very messy scene where commander made hysteric about killed German soldier who came for water. "Even animals do not devour each other at the watering!" he says. What? Hey, director, haven't you seen "Animal planet"?..

So the good name for this film is "Saving girl Katya", but not "Stalingrad". It's just a director's fantasies about THE WAR, and how does he see it, but there is nothing related to Stalingrad battle at all. Now we can easily change decorations and make film with same mental content named "Berlin" or "Kiev", because we could simply imagine the same "war story" anywhere. So, why Stalingrad?..

When I seen the trailers for this movie, I was gob-smacked. The superb VFX suggested an epic movie about the battle for Stalingrad. Great, this was going to be like "The Longest Day" or one of the other huge classic World War II movies. After the initial opener set in another part of the world, we get to Stalingrad. After some opening battle scenes which are very well done indeed, the realization sets in that what looks like an epic movie is in fact one set around a square in the city, and mainly on the now famous Pavlov's House. The events depicted are set before The Russians encircled The Germans, so we don't get to see the sight of half starved Germans. The movie settles into segments where the Russian heroes all seem to be obsessed with gaining the attentions or affections of 15 year old Russian civilian girl (Natashka) who bravely stayed in her home despite the carnage visited on the city. The apparent intention of the movie to show a love story set in Stalingrad isn't properly thought-through, simply because the hero who eventually wins Natashka's heart is a bolt out of the blue, with little in the way of cluing-in the viewer as it develops. We are left disengaged and wondering what and why about this. Thomas Kretschmann plays German officer Peter Kahn, whose main priority seems to be with a Russian woman (Masha) who reminds him of his wife who died in an air raid back in Germany. He literally puts aside all common sense and military discipline with his obsession for Masha. He defies orders, displaying little interest in the battle and risking court-martial and the firing squad. There are many good things about this movie. The VFX and sound are amazing, absolutely first class and up there with the very best. The realism they crammed into the VFX just has to be seen and appreciated. The German Panzer tanks are in fact a single Russian T34 disguised as a Panzer IV and then replicated by the VFX team into several more Panzers. Others have mentioned that Panzer IV tanks of 1942 didn't have the protective metal skirts shown in the movie, but to me that is nit-picking. The German aircraft flying overhead and the flak coming up at them is an amazing scene, as is the one where we see a damaged plane coming in and crash landing in the square. The hand to hand fight scenes are very realistic. The period uniforms seem to be quite accurate, especially the German ones. The general appearance of the uniforms is welcome and shows them grubby and dusty, which makes a welcome change from the unrealistically shiny boots and helmets in the thick of battle that we see in many war movies. Great attention to detail has been given to this. We get some aerial views of the banks of the Volga and the VFX period-recreated city damaged and on fire, which is very satisfying. They give the viewer a tantalizing glimpse and feel of how close the Germans came to victory. While overall I don't think this was a bad movie at all, I do think an opportunity to expand it more was lost. I watched this with sub-titles and the quality of translation is pretty poor in places, with small mistakes that I found annoying. There really is little excuse for this. For me, the VFX team saved the day. Their work and that of the make-up people is a credit to them and helps make this movie visually better than it otherwise deserves to be. I am giving this movie a 7 as a mark of respect and appreciation for the work the VFX and make-up team did. There is a short (about 9 minutes I think) "VFX Making Of" on Youtube that I highly suggest watching as it shows how the VFX was done.

For the story, I give this movie a 5/10. I was a little bored by it. However, for the fighting, this movie gets a 8/10. This movie has some of the best fighting scenes I have ever seen. The visuals also are truly some of the best I have ever seen. Any future war movie needs to borrow from this movies visuals. I can't overstate how blown away visually the combat was.

This movie deserves better than a 5.6. I can understand a low rating for the boring scenes in between the fighting, but its just too low for what its really worth. It is clear this movie missed the mark in delivering a good story as well as making us truly love the characters who were rather still good. More fighting and less sitting around would have done this movie far better.

In the present days, a Russian rescue team is saving lives in Japan after a tsunami. They find survivors and their leader calm a youngster down telling the story of his five fathers.

In 1942, a group of Russian soldiers hold a strategic building in Stalingrad against the German troops to protect the Volga River for the crossing of their comrades. They meet the seventeen year-old teenager Katya (Mariya Smolnikova) and she becomes the pride and joy of the band. Meanshile, the German Captain Koln (Tomas Krechmann) falls in love with the Russian Masha (Yanina Studilina), who resembles his deceased wife. But love in time of war may be tragic.

The impressive German war movie "Stalingrad" (1993) is one of the best of the genre ever, depicting the bloody Battle of Stalingrad. The Russian "Stalingrad" (2013) is not a remake of the German movie but a melodramatic and corny love story in the environment of the devastated city and heroic attitudes of the Russian soldiers. The CGI, scenarios and battle scenes are top-notch but part of the dialogs may be lost in translation since there are long sentences in Russian that are resumed in one sentence in the subtitle. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Stalingrado" ("Stalingrad")

WWII gets the 300 treatment as our fantastic heroes defeat the nasty Germans, sometimes single handedly killing a dozen men each in slow motion blood spraying hand to hand combat. It's that realistic, especially as Russians apparently keep fighting even when completely consumed by flames.

The defenders of Stalingrad were courageous real people but this belittles them as two dimensional action heroes.

A lot of effort and budget was put into making this but it was ill spent, there is no reflection, no feeling, no humanity, it is hollow. If you want to see a film about Stalingrad look up the earlier German film.

I am an avid reader of all things Stalingrad and I must be in the minority but I loved it. I kept reading reviews that compared the love story aspect of it to Titanic, so I was expecting an over the top love story with a little bit of Stalingrad mixed in. In reality, the love story part of the film was somewhat muted, did not feel shoe-horned into a war movie, nor did it seem implausible. I think it was well cast and had excellent actors. IMO, if the exact same movie had been released with Spielberg's name attached and the actors speaking English, it would have been well received. It seems there are biases against foreign films, perhaps rooted in the cold war. While it was not a 10, I thought it was a very solid film that made the viewers feel like they were there. Experiencing the film helped me see another facet to the battle. possible through books. Highly recommended!

I liked the movie! It shows ordinary people that became heroes within extraordinary circumstances. The battle scenes are astonishing and professionally shot. I watched many documentaries about Stalingrad defense and even the German veterans admitted that the Russian soldiers crashed them in combats. Kretschmann was perfect in his decadent role also. Movies about Russian heroic resistance could be made only by Russians themselves. As a total I don't think that this movie deserves worse rating than "Saving private Ryan" or "Enemy at the gates". In fact, the movie shows the Russian perception of the war. Some could find it propaganda, but having experienced in documentary literature and movies about Stalingrad siege and defense, for me the movie shows the real status of the war with modern cinema weapons!

Seriously, why is almost every scene in this movie using slow motion? This one visual trick screwed up the film's pacing and tension so badly that whatever else might've been there couldn't have saved it. Slow motion is usually used to amplify powerful scenes, not to blanket the whole movie with it. It can obviously enhance a scene in a movie if used sparingly but the filmmakers really went comically overboard with its use in this one. The movie's laughably propagandistic sentimentality does it no favors either though I guess Bondarchuck's pal Putin might appreciate it (Bondarchuck has publicly supported Putin's moves in Crimea and otherwise).

The script and the dialogue were absolutely terrible and cringe-worthy. Who actually speaks in those propagandistic terms? They also set up the characters so badly, I could scarcely remember anyone's name and didn't care about any of them. They're ridiculous caricatures with no humanity behind them and their actions are illogical and baffling most of the time. The characterizations are so minimal you'd struggle to see them with a microscope. The setup in the beginning and the narration overall didn't work either, I mean was that Russian aid worker really telling the story of the bloodiest battle in human history to a group of scared German girls trapped under ruins? Way to depress them even further.

The movie wasn't really about Stalingrad either but about this hastily put together group of soldiers defending some random building in Stalingrad. You could've transplanted them to any other random battle and nothing would've changed. There's the Barmaley statue of the dancing children and boats crossing the Volga to remind you it's actually Stalingrad but that's about it. If they chose this as the film's context then the movie should've been about resilience and brotherhood but none of that was to be found. Instead the film's focus was on the explosions and slow-motion combat. Michael Bay would surely be proud. I have to say I did get a few laughs from the movie though. When the few defenders of the building suddenly decide to storm out of their defensive positions à la 300 and when a gun crew manages to bank a shell off the armor of a broken T-34 to a German position around the corner, I just couldn't contain myself. I don't think the filmmakers intended those scenes to be funny though so make of that what you will.

I think I may be a little biased since I'm a native Russian speaker, but I thought that the movie was excellent. It really helps if you actually understand the language, because it makes it easier to relate to the characters. Trust me when I say it, the actors acted very well and like true Russians.

When me and my brother went to watch it we were one of the only people laughing at certain parts that non-native speakers didn't laugh at. Some of the things that characters say aren't truly interpreted through subtitles.

The action parts were AMAZING in IMAX 3D, very well worth it. Sure it doesn't really focus on the truth of the battle, but it was still a great movie nonetheless.

Highly recommended!

Unfortunately, this movie turned out to be what I expected from a Russian produced film about the Great Patriotic War. The film depicts the heroic soldiers and sailors of the Soviet Union fighting to the death the barbaric fascist invaders. The Soviet defenders are almost all saintly; one is even nicknamed Angel. The Germans are all beastly underlined by the atrocities they commit on screen against the surprisingly large number of Russian civilians living in the middle of the battlefield. This movie compares unfavorably with the German produced movie Stalingrad and Enemy at the Gates because of its simplicity. The only scenes that I found interesting showed the Germans preparing to attack and those which depicted the Soviets crossing the Volga. I have great difficulty recommending this movie especially considering alternatives.

Admire the ambition, but this version of Bondarchuk fails to back up its camera work, special effects and editing with enough of substance to anchor the spectator.

Cant say i was convinced with the plot or the dialogs, neither my feelings were really touched. Thomas Kretschmann actually is the only one who's character seems to be convincing. Great actor who saved this film...

Descent piece of work, but not anything i would choose to watch one more time. Would have expected Fedor Bondarchuk to come up with something much more substantial, taking into consideration the topic...

If you are the type who loves to see heroes killing everybody and lots of blood, this is not for you. If you are also the type who thinks that the Americans and the British won the war and nothing happened on the Eastern Front, well this is not for you either. But if you like to learn and you are open to new narratives, if you are sensitive and you are used to watch dramas, this is a good film. And if you liked it, maybe you could try to read a bit more of what happened on that side of the war and put yourself in the shoes of the soviet soldiers. The barbarism of the German hordes, and their European allies, portrayed in this film are just a glimpse of the reality. Recommended!

Director Bondarchuk should be arrested for creating this criminal film. Words cannot describe the depths to which this film has sunk. Every single aspect of it is deluded, pointless, dull, illogical, and irritating. The director has no story and no characters, and uses the film to shove in scenes he thinks are cool. From what I can gather, he loves The Matrix. Not only do we get more slow motion than the average human can endure, but we get stunts that belong in a Matrix film. My God, these soldiers are ninjas, their weapons can do wonders that defy laws of physics, and... What exactly was the film about? Well, absolutely nothing. It's part pathetic melodrama with all the qualities of a soap opera from Mexico, part Matrix. And when it's neither, it's just people sitting and staring, or talking nonsense. You could remove half the scenes and actually make the story more focused and clear. But what would be the point, when the story is so thin and outright insulting? How do you take one of the greatest battles of all time and turn it into a lame story about officers missing their girlfriends? In this film, Russian officers shoot soldiers in order to discipline them, and Germans hold rousing speeches about the prospect of getting sex from six-armed prostitutes in India. Has a madman written this? Or a pretentious, talentless idiot who thought Russian cinema really needed the most moronic cliches from the dumbest action films from Hollywood? This is not the first time Bondarchuk has done this. Oh, no. He has also butchered the memory of the war in Afghanistan, with his Full Metal Jacket/Platoon ripoff. How does this person keep getting any money to make films is beyond me. As I said, his filmmaking is outright criminal. It is an insult to the audience, to film as an art form, and to the Russian soldiers who fought in Stalingrad.

With only moderate reference towards the battle of Stalingrad, the film confines one genuine notable incident during the early stage of the battle, the Red Armies defense of Pavlov's house. The film takes this skirmish between combating parties and infuses a fictional tale of a platoon of hardened soldiers turning all gooey as they protect a pretty young girl resident in this house. Unfortunately, given the international release intentions, the film makers have ignored to explain the importance of this now monumental landmark. Nevertheless, do acknowledge the significance of this brutal battle towards the defeat of Nazism. Most native Russians, Second World War Historians and/or students of the Battle of Stalingrad will know of Pavlov's house; yet, the general audience probably not. However, the cohesive fictional tale is simplistic and un-compounding with plausibly acting from the cast.

The movie reminds the world, rightly so, of the sacrifices of the Soviet nation during the Second World War. The dialogue emphasises the heroics of the soviet army, not the incompetence of the leaders, or the callousness motivations of the NKVD or political commissioners. Though not overly excessive, Stalingrad indulges patriotism and saccharine parades of Russian propaganda, past and present. Visionary, the film displays, swaggers, parades and flourishes in IMAX 3D special effects at every opportunity. The digital re-mastering is at many times extremely impressive, at others, unauthentic and phony. Cheerfully playful numerous computerised optical images are so far away from normal ranges of photography, certain scenes become bogusly ludicrous, especially in the first hour of the film. Also, lamentably the film lack cultural clarity and explanations of many of the German and Soviet actions, motivations and intentions. In addition, what possessed the film makers to choose the 2010 Pacific Tsunami as the point of narration, even more so, in the process of rescuing German citizens, reminding them of one of the most horrendous points of their history?

In spite of this, as the film progressed, Stalingrad" began to superlatively harness the phony computer graphics and proficiently separate and intermittently combine when necessary the over laden special effects with the out-playing tale. Therefore, the final third of the film is the most noteworthy and engagingly satisfying both recital and visionary. In addition, irrespective of minor optical computerised visionary and narrative blunders, the film constitutes numerous accuracies. Considerably, accuracies in direction, design, atmosphere and acting. Synopsized, Stalingrad" is compelling film; epic in scope, simple in story.