Archive for April, 2007
Enemy At The Gates: Review
Enemy at the Gates was released in 2001 is based on Soviet sniper hero Vasily Zaitsev during the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII between Russia and Germany.
The movie stars Jude Law, Ed Harris as an enemy German sniper, Rachel Weisz and Joseph Fiennes. The cast does a superb job in my opinion and every person played their role perfectly.
The plot as I stated before is during the Battle of Stalingrad where Russian morale is low and the Red Army is suffering heavy losses. Russian troops have to choose between Germany bullets and their own with poor tactical fighting that would probably lead to their death. Zaitsev (Law) manages to survive and he meets political officer Danilov (Fiennes) who believes he’s a hero and wishes to use Zaitsev as a hero for the people. Zaitsev’s success leads to a Major in the German army to personally take him on and kill him to demoralize the Russian people. Major Konnig (Harris) is a better sniper then Zaitsev and Zaitsev ultimately believes he will die.
Overall as a war movie, it stood as decent. Some gore here and there and I found Rachel Weisz to be pretty hot in this film. I think there was a big lack in character development. New guys just came along and died in the next 5 minutes so it was really difficult to feel the pain of death that one felt in let says Saving Private Ryan. This movie does get bonus points for being a film taking place in Russia instead of the customary US ones that we always see. I’m giving it a 3.5 out of 5.
1 commentChildren of Men Review
Children of Men, a film directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban, Great Expectations and A Little Princess), is a very artistic film set in 2027 where the all the women in the world are infertile and the youngest person in the world of 18 years old has just been killed. With the world looking like it is on the brink of mass extinction and upscale of violence across the world.
This dystopian, Sci-Fi, thriller has many other socioeconomic issues that are very important to consider. Things such as making us think about our treatment of immigrants and if they shouldn’t be allowed in our country or pollution destroying the human race’s ability to reproducie, having these ideas as subplots doesn’t ruin the story at all. The directing is phenomenal as the camera techniques rival things used in Requiem for a Dream as it had at times very cool techniques to follow the characters or at time having blood or dirt filling up the camera screen. The acting was great provided by Clive Owen as the main protagonist who was a former activist who is asked to assist a woman to scientists who will do research to save the world. The plot just keeps you hooked on what is going to happen next.
All in all this is an artistic masterpiece with a great plot. It is now out on DVD, I would recommend renting it or buying it as it’s an awesome movie. 5 out of 5.
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