When Passchendaele was released, I was excited; finally, a WWI movie told from the Canadians' point of view (which is too often neglected) that would do the horrible conflict justice? I'm in! Then I bought the movie...
First, the good; the technical details are pretty accurate! I love researching war and weapons, and Passchendaele's weapons and other technical details are accurate to the time. The battlefields look and feel like real WWI battlefields; wet, often muddy, and miserable. It's obvious that Director Paul Gross (also the main star) did his research.
Unfortunately, that is the only part of the movie I can actually praise. Which brings us to the bad...
The story hurts the movie a lot. It tells of a veteran soldier who returns to the front to protect the relative of his nurse girlfriend. Told well, it could have added to the movie, but unfortunately the story is told poorly. Add in a few meaningless sex scenes and that hurts the movie even more. It's a war movie after all! We viewers came to see war, not a mushy love story!
Next, the stereotypes. The Canadian soldiers are usually portrayed as strong, noble, skilled soldiers, while the Germans are seen as incompetent, bumbling murderous monsters. Example(slight spoiler here!); in one of the battle scenes, the Germans attack the Canadian lines and seem to miss every single shot they fire and constantly fail at any melee combat. The Canadians are shown to be brutally efficient fighters, dropping Germans left and right. For a movie that strives to be technically accurate, the stereotypical enemies deal a major blow to the movie's reputation.
In short, a technically accurate WWI movie that fails in just about everything else.
First, the good; the technical details are pretty accurate! I love researching war and weapons, and Passchendaele's weapons and other technical details are accurate to the time. The battlefields look and feel like real WWI battlefields; wet, often muddy, and miserable. It's obvious that Director Paul Gross (also the main star) did his research.
Unfortunately, that is the only part of the movie I can actually praise. Which brings us to the bad...
The story hurts the movie a lot. It tells of a veteran soldier who returns to the front to protect the relative of his nurse girlfriend. Told well, it could have added to the movie, but unfortunately the story is told poorly. Add in a few meaningless sex scenes and that hurts the movie even more. It's a war movie after all! We viewers came to see war, not a mushy love story!
Next, the stereotypes. The Canadian soldiers are usually portrayed as strong, noble, skilled soldiers, while the Germans are seen as incompetent, bumbling murderous monsters. Example(slight spoiler here!); in one of the battle scenes, the Germans attack the Canadian lines and seem to miss every single shot they fire and constantly fail at any melee combat. The Canadians are shown to be brutally efficient fighters, dropping Germans left and right. For a movie that strives to be technically accurate, the stereotypical enemies deal a major blow to the movie's reputation.
In short, a technically accurate WWI movie that fails in just about everything else.