This movie has wasted it's title "Leningrad".

ExoticaCat

This movie has wasted it's title "Leningrad".

Very disappointing movie, can't compare to German movie Stalingrad (1993)

I had high hope for this movie. After I've watched Stalingrad (1993), I think it would be very interesting to check out the similar warfare from Russians' perspective, but I was utterly disappointed, so bad that I have to fast-forward some scenes to get by (almost quite in the middle of it).

First all, if you want to see the fierce battle scene, then you can avoid this movie altogether, because it only lasts 5 minutes in the beginning. When the bomb does fall, some scene just so lack of common sense it is ridiculous - at the scene when the British journalist encounters an air raid, the bomb just falling off around her, I highly doubt that's what German pilots would do, waste tons of bomb on one person one truck.

Second, I am all support to view the war from a different angle - city dwellers instead of soldiers at the killing field. But this movie's plot line is illogical, loss, jumping all over the places, from a conscience-stricken German pilot to the persecution of any reminder White Army relatives, from the special treatment to foreign journalists and Russian's own elite societies to the bonding of the two female characters... It's severely weakened the grim, bleak, desperate and crude suffering atmosphere when a city was under siege for 882 days with 1.5 million people perished.

Third, when the plot line is scattered, script is weak, the one last thing can save the movie from a total disaster is the acting, however, it fails miserably here too! I like actor Gabriel Byrne a lot, but see him in this movie make me wondering what he was thinking? The Russian woman solider is way over the top annoying, she seems can be anywhere, do anything with full energy while others were at the verge of starving to death hanging on their finger nails. The English journalist is even more plain and phony. None the characters is likable, well acted, be able to command the screen and memorable.

I like this movie just for the cinematographic which convincingly presents the destructed city and it's suffering people.

And finally, I do have my utter respect to Russian people who has survived the siege, who fought and won the impossible fight and set off the turning point of WWII.

score 4/10

ExoticaCat 23 May 2010

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2253942/