Battle for Sevastopol (2015)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

For someone who was born 14 years after the WW2 ended and who grew up in USSR watching hundreds of similar war flicks, this one just doesn't cut it. It isn't a movie even, it's a primitive cartoon, full of stick figure characters, and how can anyone sympathize with walking stick figures is beyond me. There are no people in this movie, not one, not even the lady Eleanor - played by the sole American on the cast. And certainly not the protagonist Lyuda, although I can see that she tried. I just can't imagine why would anyone make a movie like that in 2015. To me, it clearly belongs in the late 1950 - early 1960s era, back when better directors made better movies than this one - every year by a dozen.

It is ridiculously unrealistic. Life in Stalin's USSR depicted like a paradise with happy people and abundance of food (we are talking about 1 year after the end of the Great Terror), snipers that take out tanks and so on, German soldiers that attack in open field at walking pace and using no cover, and yet they make short work of a Russian defensive trench, and many more. Rudimentary dialogue, giving characters no psychological depth ("If you do not want to fight for your country, you are a coward"). Fragmented story. Millions of Soviet soldiers deserve a better depiction of the suffering and hardships they hand to endure in those years in order to bring victory to their country.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko is a good student who can never match the ideals of her austere NKVD, Officer father. Then war breaks out and it is discovered that she is a crack shot. So she is made to join the snipers after the Germans invade in 1941 through Operation Barbarossa. She is also a woman with the needs of such and has already attracted a few suitors, one is aspiring doctor – however, she is more enamoured with her commanding officer.The fates of war mean that you must seize today what may be gone tomorrow and that is a theme that is more or less a constant throughout this. It follows the plight of the Russians as they retreat across their vast country until they are able to build up their forces to give the invading Nazi's the righteous kicking they so keenly deserve. This though ends with the stand at Sevastopol and Lyudmila's personal and actual battles on and off the field of battle. Now the action scenes are all very good, the character development is fine too. The acting is all above average and the CGI is good in most parts. Some of the Americans are dubbed though which I always find annoying but that is a small gripe for what is in the main part a really good war film with full on emotions thrown in for added pathos and drama; this is not up to the calibre of say 'The Admiral' but is still deserving of a watch – recommended.

I think that it is quite a decent war movie, at par or better than "Enemy at the gates". There is very good performance for the main character. Cliché of Soviet communist organizer in US; but movie shall have a non good communist character, as real life had at the time. Very chilling and excellent scene of 10 year old girl reciting "Kill German" poem, and in all likelihood the girl was killed herself few months down the road. I waiting for English version to show to my friends, but translation going to be very difficult and will result in lower quality - a lot of important subtle messages in the movie is use of Russian, Ukranian dialect of Russian, and Ukranian languages, as well as some subtle elements to Russian-Jewish culture.