Stalingrad
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: February 28, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 27, 2014
After a devastating opening, the movie gets sluggish here and there, but it remains interesting throughout, not just culturally, but as a piece of drama. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungFeb 25, 2014
It is a strange cross-breed between an old-fashioned WWII epic full of genre cliches and a modern update whose meticulous historical recreation is frighteningly real. Read full review
70
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekFeb 25, 2014
Lush with feeling that could easily be mistaken for sentimentality, Stalingrad is more like a 19th-century novel than a 21st-century blockbuster. It's theatrical and intense, sometimes in an overbearing way, but it's never boring. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 26, 2014
Stalingrad is a 3-D epic that's one-dimensional. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyFeb 28, 2014
It's a mixed bag overall — hence my star rating — but it's worth seeing nonetheless, largely because of the explicitly Russian qualities its sustains. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreFeb 25, 2014
In detail and combat spectacle, Stalingrad is hard to beat. And whatever its failings, one can’t help but be curious about a story as connected to national identity as this one, a film that like today’s Russia, feels more Soviet than Russian. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleFeb 27, 2014
Though plenty of road-tested war truths about sacrifice, honor, grit and intimacy get trotted out, "Stalingrad" is deep down a spectacle campaign forged in operatic violence and a siege of the senses, and on those terms it has its moments. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfFeb 25, 2014
Hollywood does this too; truth be told, Russia’s high-tech whitewash goes down smooth like vodka. Read full review
60
Total FilmStephen KellyFeb 18, 2014
A solid enough war flick, but Spielberg doesn’t have too much to worry about yet. Read full review
55
NPRMark JenkinsFeb 28, 2014
If you're only going to see one film about the Battle of Stalingrad — and there are many — Stalingrad would be the wrong choice. Russian director Fedor Bondarchuk's treatment of the World War II turning point is shallow and contrived, if sometimes impressively staged. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 6, 2014
Viewed as cinema, it’s an unstable and almost surrealist combination of Soviet-style war propaganda film, Zack Snyder-style action flick and sentimental fairy tale. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 3, 2014
While the imagery in this retelling is impeccable, the story is strangely lifeless. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryFeb 27, 2014
As quickly as the technical elements pull the audience in, the plot pushes us away. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyFeb 27, 2014
Overall, Stalingrad is a bizarre concoction, part Putin-era patriotic chest-thumping and part creaky war melodrama, all set in a superbly recreated ruined city. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerFeb 27, 2014
The film calms down a bit in its second half, leaving more room for Bondarchuk’s striking wartime tableaux, making occasional use of its native 3-D cinematography. (The movie, a massive success in Russia last year, will screen primarily in IMAX 3D venues in the U.S.) Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoFeb 27, 2014
It’s a brutal bit of screen poetry that’s matched too infrequently by the aching human stories director Fedor Bondarchuk is so anxious to tell. Read full review
50
New York PostLou LumenickFeb 26, 2014
Unfortunately, as in Bay’s “Pearl Harbor,’’ much of the sometimes draggy 2 1/4 hours is given to clichéd inspirational drama. Read full review
40
The New York TimesNicolas RapoldFeb 27, 2014
The movie’s few spectacles — particularly the composite image of Russian soldiers aflame after a fuel depot explodes — seem to consume the creative energies of the filmmakers, with their palpable pride in staging patriotic deaths from the safe distance of history. Read full review
40
The DissolveScott TobiasFeb 26, 2014
Bondarchuk mingles the you-are-there grittiness of close-quarters combat and constant assaults from above and below with war-movie clichés that haven’t been updated since before the real Battle Of Stalingrad. It’s history written with airbrush. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 26, 2014
The macho showmanship of director Fyodor Bondarchuk, wedded to such a facile script, turns this undeniably impressive megaproduction into a behemoth you mainly want to cower from. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonFeb 18, 2014
When the best one can say about a movie is that it’s pyrotechnically impressive, something important is missing. In this case it’s tension, originality and memorable characters. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDrew HuntFeb 23, 2014
Its blind reverence toward the Russian mythos is so grandiose that it becomes impossible to rescue it from self-importance, and as such President Putin would likely give it two big thumbs up. Read full review
30
VarietyJay WeissbergFeb 25, 2014
Assaults are filmed in ubiquitous slow-mo to better register the way bodies are thrown into the air. It’s all rather confusing, actually, since the monochromatic tonalities and weak script, lacking in any comprehensible battle strategy, tend to meld the two sides together. Read full review
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