Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

smatysia Not being a student of film history, this bored me. An obvious bit of Russian propaganda in a time when Germany's belligerence was causing more than a little worry in Europe. While it did hit the class warfare buttons a few times it, was far more a nationalist propaganda film than a Communist one. That is a bit interesting, since Communism was supposed to be anti-nationalist. (Hence the Soviet anthem, The Internationale) Communism was supposed to be about class only, and nationality was not supposed to matter. But then again, Stalin killed and dislocated millions of people to Russify the outlying areas of the Soviet empire, even though he was not himself Russian. I guess he knew which side of the power bread was buttered.

supernma I'd like to first say that the version of the film I saw had some of the worst audio-visual quality I've ever had to endure. The sound effects and voice literally sounded like static on my television, and the picture was washed and fuzzy. Therefore, I probably did not experience the film the way it was meant to be seen, and as a result my opinion of it has been tainted."Alexander Nevsky" is a decent propaganda picture released during Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union. It is filled with patriotism and proud declaration of Russia's greatness and willingness to fight. However, much of this enthusiasm didn't carry over for me, and I felt very lost and detached the entire film (again, most-likely due to the technical quality of the DVD). Also, the translation and subtitles were awful and made it even harder to follow the film. However, it did have one long, rousing battle sequence that surely set the standard for many to come, and a memorable score added to the excitement. Overall though, it was all a bit underwhelming for me.I can only hope for a newly restored, updated version to be released some day so that I can fully enjoy the film the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

dromasca Great directors must be judged not only by their masterpieces but also by their failures. When talking about Eisenstein 'Alexandr Nevskiy' is such a failure, but it's not easy to judge Eisenstein upon it, as it is so obvious that most of the failure of this film do not belong to him.'AN' is a piece of anti-German propaganda made in 1938 on the eve of the second world war and of the conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. To make points clear the authors fill in the film with such ridiculous details as having the 13th century Teutonic soldiers wear Wehrmacht-like helmets or the 20th century German effigy painted on the Teutonic flags. The conflict is extremely schematic and stereotype and it takes the full power of such a great actor as Nikolai Tschekasov was to give some life to the main character, while most if not all the other characters fall into ridicule or close.Yet, there are glimpses of great cinema in this film. The battle scene while not reaching the heights of the mass scenes in 'Potemkin' is well conceived and orchestrated, and the rendition of the German leaders has hypnotic power, with the Dark Monk figure looking like a cinematic father of Bergman's death angel and grandfather of Darth Vader. Best of all is the combination between Eisenstein's visuals and Prokofiev's musical score. Actually music is so good while text is so bad that I believe that it would have been much better if the whole text was sung rather than spoken - it would have been the first or one of the first filmed operas in history, not a forgettable propaganda film in the career of an extraordinary director.

Rufus-T I believe anyone who enjoyed Eisentein's Ivan the Terrible movies would enjoy this well crafted movie. This movie played out like "Lord of the Ring: Return of the King", but without the special effect but as good and better drama.We have the German, who dressed like KKK, conquered Novgorod of Russia. The Russian summoned Nevsky to lead them to fight the German to save Russia. Nikolai Cherkasov, who played Ivan in the Ivan the Terrible films, was charismatic as Nevsky. The first 10 min how he handled the passing by Mongol was captivating.Many of the scenes were beautiful even in black and white. The anticipation of War did not require any dialogue such as "how many enemy we will be killing", etc. Except for a few speeches, the film can basically be played out as a silent film. The fighting scene can hold up to those of the Civil War fighting scene of The Birth of a Nation.Another strength of the movie is the great musical score, by Sergei Prokofiev. The music gave an epic feel to the movie in those scenes without dialogue.