text: (Warning: spoilers! -- although it's hard to spoil this film by telling story details.)<br /><br />Eisenstein's black and white propaganda film is not for everyone. It's very old and it's, er, clumsy. What makes it great for me is the soundtrack, not the original but the updated soundtrack. Better still, the orchestral version Prokofiev created (my favorite performance is by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony).<br /><br />The film is actually funny in places. It's reminiscent of the old "Midsummer Night's Dream". Some of the outdoor scenes are quite magnificent. Some of the actors are also quite magnificent. (The actor who played Nevsky could have been a superstar today. Ditto for the warrior chick, Vasilisa -- definitely a rocker.) <br /><br />This may be the world's best collection, on film, of pithy Russian sayings (there are tons of them -- they make up the bulk of the spoken lines).<br /><br />The battle scenes actually look much more realistic than most high-budget Hollywood flix. These guys are as clumsy with their fighting as real peasants would be. The weapons look nasty, so the actors were probably trying to avoid actually wounding one another.<br /><br />The actor playing the German "grand marshall" is trying *really* hard to look scary early in the film, but he looks like he was really a pussycat. After he's captured he looks *so* pathetic. (Speaks volumes about the intended audience, da?)<br /><br />A really humorous touch is that the German army brings an *organ* with it, played by a character in a black robe. Watch the Russians bring this guy down *while* he's playing.<br /><br />After the battle is over and almost all of the Germans are dead comes the best part of the film (and the music), the song sung to the dead soldiers who've died defending the motherland. This part is so sad it's almost an anti-war statement.<br /><br />Ten times as many men as ladies have rated this film. Wonder why?<br /><br />Warning: Joseph Stalin liked this film. Ironic -- he killed more Russians than anybody. "Those who come to Russia carrying a sword will die by the sword".