ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Cem Lamb This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

cremebluray I had to write a review because the written reviews here don't seem to match the actual score of the film.The film follows some young soldiers to the front, but it's exactly what you expect. There is very little in terms of story or character development. It is the equivalent of watching a reenactment of the war rather than a story set in the war. The war itself is in the foreground, the middle ground and the background - it is the be all and end all of the film.There is very little in terms of film - thoughts, deep dialogues, score, music, iconic scenes, locations, characters, camera movement or anything that makes a film stand out from a webcam on the front.The film had a small budget and some things look fake, but I wouldn't take 0.5 of my final score for that minor detail. The artillery and guns look, but the action is not exciting. There are very few camera tricks (tracking, pans, follow) or quick cuts that make the action scene exciting, to take us from being observers to participants.It gets points for being one of the most realistic (in mood) war films. It is not dramatized or fetishized, but it is plain and has no message. It places you there. But that's about all it does. It's as enjoyable as being there in person.The Winter War is an interesting subject, but I don't think this film does it justice at all. It just shows it, but says nothing about it in any way.

Johannes Nummela What I find as the greatest bad sides in some Hollywood war films (american perspective) is that too often their sole message is true patriotism, killing 'fritzes' and 'japs', and usually the movies lack the feeling of true war. Europeans, maybe because the war was mainly fought in Europe, look the war in exactly the way as it should be: there is nothing glorious in war. And Talvisota is no exception.Talvisota pictures the desperate David & Goliath battle from perspective of basic Finnish soldiers, the same normal humans that feel pain, fear and exhaustion. That gives the image of typical men, not any Schwartznegger-type superheroes, or ever-fighting Finns of German WW2 propaganda. You may even feel of being one of the soldiers in the trench, waiting for next the assault. Although the atmosphere is mainly sad, there are lighter things like lost kitten, military humor and meetings with family (althought they are not always so happy meetings).This is a magnificent movie, definitely the best Finnish movie (both war and non-war) I have ever seen. I recommend everyone who likes war films to watch it, it has the mentality of "All Quiet On Western Front" and the 'action' of "Saving Private Ryan".

Michael A. Martinez In my opinion, this is exactly what a war movie should be. It sticks almost entirely to the facts, and even though there is a main character, the action is not glued to him. But furthermore, it all feels very comprehensive - beginning with the mobilization of the Finnish army to fend off the Soviet invasion, and ending with the armistice. The ending, while pretty brief, communicates more with a facial expression than any big final speech could. It's absolutely brilliant.Every element of war is shown or at least hinted at - the poor conditions of the front line, the morale of the troops, the bitter trench fighting, air raids, suicidal charges, sacrificial sapper destruction of tanks, etc. The tanks, uniforms, armament, AT guns, and planes all look historically accurate, and there's plenty of battles and explosions to keep even attention deficit viewers like myself awake through the 3 hour running time. Also exciting are the numerous Russian massed assaults with thousands of extras filling the screen, plus artillery blasting fleeing troops and dead bodies into the air.This is directly what inspired the Germans to make their similar violent and bleak anti-war film STALINGRAD (1993) with lesser results, which took another 5 years for Spielberg and Hollywood to digest, before we got hit with the current crop of war films from SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to THIN RED LINE, WHEN THE TRUMPETS FADE, to DAYS OF GLORY, Eastwood's IWO JIMA flicks, and "BAND OF BROTHERS". All these are done in a style which originated with this movie, the first real bloody hard-hitter of a world war 2 movie (even though the Soviet-Finnish war of '39 was not technically part of World War 2).Totally recommended to even the casual war movie fan. A semi-sequel TUNTEMATON SOTILAS (aka THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER) made in 1955, is not as good but also worth watching, and covers the continuation war which came a year and a half after the close of this film. Avoid the 1985 remake though.

capecodder33 This movie was just down right bad. I love war movies and can normally come away from most movies and find something that I liked,but this was not one of them. This movie lacked substance and intensity.OK I get it, the Finns put up one hell of a fight and thats great, but the story is poorly told. You don't have any real connection with any of the characters and there's no real story line to follow. You just go from one random scene to another, nothing flows to form the story that is trying to be conveyed. If you want a war movie that will keep you riveted, and amazingly enough without battles scenes, then I would suggest "Downfall" (WWII German film). Or if you prefer a great story line and a lot of action then I would suggest "Brotherhood of War" (Korean war/Korean film). These two movies will not let you down as Winter War will.