WWII Movie to End All WWII Movies

Rating: 10/10 (31 March 2005)

I give this the highest rating, I just left the theater and it's one of the best films I have ever seen. I was almost in tears in a couple of places. I recommend reading Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle" before you see this movie. If you like that book you'll like the movie plus you'll be historically prepared for the events depicted in the movie. The performances are dead on, especially the minor characters of the fanatic Nazis. If you spend much time looking at blogs and message boards in today's political climate, it's easy to believe people can be this crazy. Magda Goebbels made me think of Ann Coulter. The vignettes of Nazi Germany's death throes interspersed with the battle in Berlin's ruins are one of the truest pictures of the horror (and heroism) of war since "Saving Private Ryan." Some viewers may find some scenes too horrifying, as Frau Goebbels did murder her own children, and there are numerous executions and murder-suicides shown as well. This movie is good history, centered mostly around the experience of a nice-looking, but not very sharp girl who was Hitler's secretary for the latter half of the war. She wasn't corrupted by the experience, which is one of the most interesting aspects. I wonder what the affect of a wide US release of this movie would have been last year.