Quite stupid

Rating: 2/10 (19 March 2001)

What a horrible film. The first five minutes made me feel like I was watching a sequel to Saving Private Ryan, and that's fine. Though unoriginal, the gory realism of war is entertaining to watch for most violent mongering young men like me.
But this movie quickly nosedives into several ludicrous sub-plots, and the battle for Stalingrad merely becomes the backdrop for two lame and hackneyed stories--a romance with two friends going after the girl, and a high-noon, Top Gun, who's the toughest guy on the block shoot-out.
I came into the film expecting to be treated to lots of awesome, over-the-top battle scenes (eg Saving Private Ryan) and tense "nazis aren't a faceless enemy" (eg Thin Red Line w/Japanese soldiers) but instead get bored silly with annoying revenge cliches and cute kids. And the irritating love story and preposterous and forced mano-to-mano scenes? Don't get me started.
This film hardly qualifies as a war movie.