A band of Russian soldiers fight to hold a strategic building in their devastated city against a ruthless German army, and in the process become deeply connected to two Russian women who have been living there.
By ignoring the bigger picture of what the battle of Stalingrad meant to both the Russian and German armies, and the importance of the city within WWII operations, Bondarchuk’s bombast misses the point of the battle.
Fedor Bondarchuk helms one of Russia’s most expensive action pictures, and the 3D effects of explosions and plane crashes are plentiful and impressive; the one-dimensional storytelling and stiff subtitles, rather less so.
A solid enough war flick, but Spielberg doesn’t have too much to worry about yet.
Battle scenes that are VFXed within an inch of their lives and stereotyped Nazis pale as flaws compared with heroes that are too broadly sketched to care about. Play Call Of Duty instead.
The subtext – Russia endures, flexes muscles anew – doubtless makes it President Putin's pick of the week, but someone should really take him to see the Lego film.
Stalingrad is certainly watchable in its overwrought bombast, but it's less a film than a $30m ideological monument. It proves the Marxian adage that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as special-effects kitsch.
It’s dull, cliché-ridden stuff.
The production design is extraordinarily detailed. Bondarchuk and his team have gone to exhaustive lengths to recreate the bombed-out city, to its last craters and flakes of ash.
Bondarchuk is no idiot, but the sound and fury of Stalingrad signifies nothing.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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