I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

I'll keep it brief: I've watched some very good war movies in my time - Das Boot, Schindler's List, Von Ryan's Express - to name a few, but this? Frankly, it's one of the worst war movies I've ever seen. A truly awful film. The script is terrible; the acting - with the exception of the main German protagonist, the 0fficer character played by Thomas Kretschmann - is poor; the use of slow motion to depict battle scenes is annoying in the extreme and made even more so by the ridiculously overblown musical score playing throughout; the Russian actors' voices are overdubbed by American voice over actors who sound like they're reading their parts straight from the sheet and the battle scenes are ridiculously contrived. For example, there is a scene during the early part of the film in which fuel tanks are blown up by the Germans in an effort to halt the attacking wave of Red Army soldiers. The Russians to a man are saturated in burning fuel, but nevertheless continue to press home their attack apparently unaffected by the flames,forcing the whole German front line to retreat in chaos. It was at this point that I decided I could not watch it any longer. Just ridiculous. The whole thing comes off like an old Commando war comic, but with CGI. I should have known better than to go by the reviews on the cover of the DVD.

This is a very odd film, obviously mixing a variety of genres and movie tropes, with uneven results. Nonetheless, I found it worthwhile, though I was forced to revise my expectations continuously while I watched.Like the previous German 'Stalingrad,' this Russian film does not attempt to tell the story of this pivotal battle of World War II. Instead, it once more burrows down to give us a worm's-eye view - this time from the Russian side. But where the German film captures only chaos and madness, the Russian version gives us at least a symbolic representation of the larger reality. We don't see the vast strategies at play, or the chronology of the battle. But we do glimpse the scale of the devastation, and we do get some perspective on the undoubted fortitude of the Russian defenders.There's a very odd 21st Century gloss over all all this. The film uses trendy digital techniques, and even IMAX 3D. (Mercifully, I saw the 'flat' version.) This gives it a hyper-kinetic, surreal quality that seems painfully at odds with the historical subject matter. This is the battle of Stalingrad as seen by a modern time-traveler, not as it would have appeared to the participants. The film is impeccably produced, but the stylistic approach will be understandably off-putting to many viewers.However, almost obscured by all the high-tech technique, there's a rather beautiful little story struggling to escape. The tale is presented as a reminiscence, almost as a fable. It's about one small group of soldiers, who befriend a young civilian survivor. This girl, Katya, refuses to move out of her apartment, even though her friends, neighbors and family have all perished there. And even though the Germans bring ever greater firepower to bear against the building.Young Katya does a pretty good job of representing The Spirit of the Russian People. Idealized, certainly, but why not? Surely those who fought and died in this gruesome battle deserve to be idealized, if anyone does. Katya's innocence is the innocent hope of every civilian population that's ever been subject to invasion and subjugation. How could ANYONE endure the unimaginable hardships of war and occupation, if they couldn't cling to some vision that it would all be worth it, that in the end things would come out right?The soldiers are also stereotypes, but likable ones. Like Katya, they're icons that do ring true on some human level. Their violence - on both Russian and German sides - is casual, senseless. This is a view of war reduced to a personal battle of wills, between opponents who no longer clearly remember their original objectives. And the individual dramatic arcs do work, despite the odd style of the film.It is both a compliment and a criticism to say that this version of 'Stalingrad' is 'enjoyable.' The creators have wrung a very positive, very human story out of the chaos of large-scale butchery. It's an odd objective, to be sure, and one that many will find inappropriate. But taken purely as a cinematic creation, 'Stalingrad' is definitely worth seeing. And, in some strange way, it does deepen our understanding of the time and place it depicts.It's true, this 'Stalingrad' is impossible to watch without mixed feelings. But perhaps that's as it should be, for any film on this topic.

I have live during a war and see how a real one is. This movie is one of the best about WW2 I have ever seen, from the point of real life view of how soldiers and people -citizens- react under those circumstances. Also may not represent the real Stalingrad battle but that's not my point here.It is slow and bit boring sometimes and yes most viewers will like more action and explosions and gore. Forget all about those brave super heroes you see from Hollywood movies. It is not like this not at all. An example that's a standard cliché in all movies now, the sergeant opens the vehicle door and shouts "go go go go soldiers get them, lets show those !!!! what we really are" etc etc. That's a bad joke. It is not like that in the line of fire and when soldiers run out from the transportation vehicle and the first bomb drops nearby even 300 meter away its nothing like what we see in movies not even at 10 % close.

When you expect one battle movie, you expect the typical vision of the war. This is a nice movie because you can see the another war, the really war in the east. It was a hard battle and the movie is that. The argument is not very good, the story of exaggerated love, far from the reality is annoying.But the effects are very pleasing to the eye, the music does its job, and the actors are commensurate with the expected. It's a movie for a Saturday, action and heroism from the Soviet vision (actually a Russian view) Sometimes you lose your initial script (which does not matter) and gets into the love story something I dislike me.If you search one Historical film with the soviet vision this is not your movie, this is an action movie