cookie cutter failure

Rating: 1/10 (17 February 2003)

While I was excited to see Jude Law and Joseph Fiennes in the same movie, `Enemy at the Gates' still managed to disappoint me both in plot and acting. This movie is another in the series of easily predictable cookie cutter `war/love' films to come out of Hollywood. Peppered with irrelevant metaphors of wolves and donkeys, I found myself laughing at the moments that were supposed to be serious. For example, Danilov says, `What we need is a hero.' Khrushchev sarcastically replies, `Do you know any heroes?' Danilov answers, `I know one.' Please, this scene happens in every movie. Naturally after that conversation, the camera moves to the main character, who is also the `hero' previously talked about.	As for the romance, it was completely unnecessary. The romance was so forced. There were no sparks between Jude Law and Rachel Weisz. The love scene in the barracks was completely unbelievable as well as unpassionate. First, I thought it was totally lame that they make the girl start it especially if we're supposed to believe that she's a virgin. Second, she looked as if she were in pain during the whole sex part and if they were really in love, he would act like he cared instead of pounding away. Third, like the guy walking through wouldn't notice, let's get realistic here.
I personally think that I may have enjoyed the movie if Tania character were a guy or not in the movie at all. The love was not only forced, but was completely unnecessary and took away from the movie instead of making it better. Her character was a complete stereotype the `smart strong independent coy tomboy.' How she was going to be involved was so obvious and bland. I was relieved when she got shot, I thought there was going to be a plot twist, but alas she miraculously bounced back to perfect health in some random hospital. It was clear that the love part of the movie was in it because it was part of this equation that supposedly equals `good epic film.'	Visually, I got pretty tired of the shaking and moving camera during fight scenes and scenes with sniper stuff. I know that it was supposed to create confusion and discomfort like the characters feel, but it didn't work for me for over two hours. I did however, really like the fonts that they used on screen in the beginning and again in the credits in the end. I think those parts were visually well done. The favorite part of the movie was the part with the map and the Nazi regime looking like black blood infesting Europe. I thought that was a great visual representation of what was happening at that time. The only scene that had any positive impact on me was the beginning when all the soldiers were being forced out of the train to battle to fight and most likely die. That scene was pretty well done but the blood explosions in slow motion were a little too much.	This movie was trying to be a riveting `epic film' geared toward everyone with war and explosions for guys and love and `hot guys' for girls. With all these supposedly promising ingredients the film didn't work because there was no chemistry between Fiennes and Law or between Law and Weisz. This is a hard thing to not have because they were trying to portray these dramatic roles that were very heavy and serious but instead the acting and `love' scenes made me laugh instead of identify with them.