Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a long step downward from "Band of Brothers" to this ill thought-out imitation, but I suppose that successes like "Band of Brothers" and "Saving Private Ryan" can't be ignored. There's gold left in that vein.I didn't watch it all the way through. My dolorimeter reading was bouncing around in the red.But it's worth a brief summary. "Band of Brothers" followed a unit -- Easy Company of the 101st Airborn -- from jump school to the end of the war. The goal was simple: To do one's job and stay alive if possible. "Saving Private Ryan" gave us a more tangible goal: Save Private Ryan. The goal here is to save the world from extermination by Hitler's atomic bomb. Now THERE is a goal!All of that is too dull for "Company of Heroes." There's a nude scene, Germans who speak English -- including Jurgen Prochnow, the talented and handsome young KaEl of "Das Boot," whose features now seem to be a cartouche set in a frame of creases and who is evidently in need of another paycheck -- tanks that don't look like any tank ever built, slow motion deaths, a sniper who never misses, and -- well, why go on? The photographic techniques are copied from "Band of Brothers," as is the title.

bill-2158 I can't call this movie a total waste of time, because I was reading my email while suffering through it. I had to quit watching halfway through. I could take no more.Here's what to do if you know you are making a bad WW2 movie. Get actors that performed well in great WW2 productions, pay them whatever you have to in order to get them in your stinker, and hope they draw people in. Unfortunately, Tom Sizemore from "Saving Private Ryan" + Neal McDonough from "Band of Brothers" + Jürgen Prochnow from "Das Boot" + a bad movie, still = a bad movie.This movie was obviously made by people that know nothing about the military, and didn't care enough to consult with people that do. I knew the movie was in trouble when people kept calling a sergeant "sir" throughout the whole movie. Even if a character was supposed to be ignorant of this, the sergeant would have corrected him. How many times have we heard lines in a movie like, "Don't call me sir. I work for a living." You gotta love how worried they are about a "German" tank they encounter. They had to stop this tank before it overran their whole base, but they use their Bazooka rounds on the accompanying soldiers before FINALLY using it on the tank. This "Super Bazooka" is so powerful, that one shot at the tanks track blows the whole tank up in a huge fireball."The Guys" also have this capability to become things that usually take quite a bit of specialized training and time. Instant snipers. Instant spies.OK. I realize getting the right equipment and weapons is difficult, if not impossible. Still, if you are going to disguise what is probably a Russian T-34 tank as a German tank - at least make it look like an actual German tank, like they did in "Kelly's Heroes". The makers of this movie were content with just hanging pieces of whatever all over these tanks so they looked like anything besides what they actually were.The best equipment goof was the train engine seen in most of the close shots. A typical old steam locomotive usually seen in old westerns, and of the type used in the late 19th century, complete with "cow catcher", large stack and cab.This movie doesn't seem to know what it is trying to be either. Is it trying to be an alternate history, like "Inglourious Basterds"? That would be the only way to explain the Nazis having anything close to nuclear weapons capabilities. Is it trying to be like a graphic novel, with all the blood squirting, body-squishing tank scenes? Is it a comic book, with it's main antagonist adorned with some weird metal leg brace, walking cane, and serious (bad) comic book persona.The only thing that looks halfway decent is the uniforms. Some people have commented about wrong patches and insignia, but the overall look-and-feel seems right. OK. I've never heard of anyone in the RAF (Vinnie Jones character) wearing berets or calling themselves the British Air Force or anything other than RAF.A terrible movie with so much wrong with it that all I can say is that it MIGHT be better than "Ardennes Fury". Watch it for free if you want a good laugh.

SimonJack The producers of "Company of Heroes" tried to make a World War II film. They get credit for the effort. But the finished product makes one wonder how serious an effort they made. Or maybe, one should question the ability of modern filmmaking to proximate historical things with any semblance of reality.The plot for this movie comes from a video game. That's OK – fiction is fiction. The one thing it has is a big serving of action. I watched the bonus video on making of the movie. Some of the production people and cast described the lengths they went to for authentic props. For instance, they got a Russian tank that closely resembled a German Tiger tank. They duplicated it in several shots to give the impression of a column of tanks. They made one wooden model German anti-aircraft gun and moved it from place to place to represent many such guns. But the anti-aircraft gun looked shiny and freshly painted. It didn't look like a weapon that had been in combat for three or four years. Wherever we saw anti-aircraft guns, it was the same shiny, brand-new looking phony prop. And the tanks all looked the same. They didn't smudge the tank or change its appearance from scene to scene. So, it was obviously the same one. The aircraft used were all computer generated, and aerial CGI never looks real to me – or to other viewers I know. As I said, the film did have lots of action. But that was so unreal from two standpoints. Most of the GIs were using Tommy guns. None appeared to have cylinder magazines, so they would have had 20-round or 30-round box magazines. We see several of the GIs firing the submachine guns repeatedly. They had to be peeling off scores of rounds. But never do we see anyone changing an empty magazine. Indeed, they never seem to run out of bullets. The only time we see men carrying rifles – which most of the enlisted men in an infantry unit would have, is in the early part of the film, with the snipers. The movie had the "feel" of a video game throughout. Not only did the GIs have unlimited bullets in all their Tommy guns, but they mowed down the Germans by the dozens. In scenes with several Germans firing on them, we only occasionally see one of the Americans being hit, while they take out scores of Germans. Finally, even the filming outdoors in Bulgaria with the snow on the ground didn't look real. Maybe because digital video is so sanitized, it doesn't look real. This movie took place around the time of the Battle of the Bulge – in late 1944. When they learn about the Germans working on an atomic bomb, the GIs don't question it at all. They remark as though they knew what an atomic bomb was – even though it hadn't been invented yet. Some scientists and a very few top government officials knew about the efforts to make an atomic bomb, and what it was. But very few people had such knowledge before the U.S. dropped the A-bombs on Japan in August, 1945. There isn't much more than can be said about this film. It left me feeling as though I had just watched someone play a war video game.

crappii This has got to be the worst WWII film ever. The Germans never started building an atomic bomb during the war. It was never contemplated. It was never started. Besides that, it was just corny. Someone mentioned it was funny. It wasn't funny. It wasn't meant to be funny. 'Top Secret' was a funny WWII film. It was written that way. This was just bad script writing done by someone who knew nothing about WWII except, maybe there was a Battle of the Bulge in 1944. I couldn't even finish watching this. I didn't care how it ended. I just wish an atomic bomb had blown up the writer and everyone who had anything to do with this movie.