Good story, Not enough for a whole film

An Exercise In Nonsense

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

No dubs, "Alexander Nevsky" is a Soviet propaganda. Except the fact that the described battle is a real event and Alexander led his army, all the other facts are mostly fakes. Interestingly enough, that before this movie Alexander Nevsky was not such a popular historical hero. He is a Russian saint, but previously, was mostly known for his devotion to the Orthodox Church and a refusal of any compromises with catholics. The historical sources say that Alexander Nevsky was fighting against 25-30 knights and about 500 soldiers from the aboriginal tribes.At the same time the film was so talented and so good that Russian people took all the screen story as a historical fact and truth. And yes, it's an epic story, told by two genius: Eisenstein and Prokofiev. So, its a great move and I love it. I love to listen to this music and to see these images. It's a very charismatic piece of art. And it's a very-very Russian myth. It's worth to watch, do it and probably, you understand the "strange Russian soul" a bit more.

This might surprise some, but in this film, Eisenstein lays down the model for how to create a montage for a pre-modern battle scene. To my knowledge, all movies dealing with such scenes have used essentially the same template. This comes from the scenes when the Russian army is waiting for the Teutons coming over the ice. When you see this sequence, you will never see movies like Braveheart or the Two Towers the same way again. f Moreover, for those who care about such things, the movie actually manages to be truer to how battles were waged than many more contemporary films - you can actually tell how these forces fight on formation!Aside from these aspects, the film also showcases Eisenstein's directorial genius throughout, so it's really a must-see for anyone interested in his contributions to the development of cinema.

A celebrated director is tough to critique, as we'll be too tough or too lenient. I think it's best to just forget who directs this.This has all the makings of epic propaganda, of high adventure.Alexander is a war hero, and is called upon to fight the Tuetonic knights of Germany, who invade their land.The chief plot here becomes the subplot of a comic romantic triangle, however, and the interweaving of this is probably the only thing that saves this movie from fairly heavy ennui.We don't mind the Teutonic knights being evil, or Germans being the bad guys, but they are portrayed in a way that makes no sense. For some reason a papal court leads the knights in evil. Not only did the papacy have nothing to do with Hitler, and not only did Hitler persecute all theists, but this had nothing to do with the propaganda needs at the time. The best guess here is that Russia didn't want to offend the rest of the East.Aside from the propaganda, some things work. Alexander is well photographed throughout. Eisenstein's bright spot is in highlighting his hero.The rest of the movie is fairly dull, a struggle to get through. This was made in days of movie houses, so it is understandable that much of the movie is filler space for people to go to the lobby and buy popcorn and soda. This movie must have sold tons of popcorn and soda, because 50% of it is "walk out and buy popcorn and soda" time.Eisenstein doesn't flair as a director, but does have a knack for cameras. Use of cameras seems to be his forte.

Alexander Nevsky is a series of superb sequences of cinematic opera that pass from pastoral to lamentation and end in a triumphal cantata. The story takes place in 1242. Prince Alexander Nevsky (Nikolai Cherkasov) defeats the Teutonic Knights in a battle on the ice of Lake Peipus.The film is a splendid historical pageant which shows director Sergei Eisenstein at his most inventively pictorial, and climaxes in a superb battle sequence using music instead of natural sounds. Several films have scenes strongly influenced by the Battle of Lake Peipus, including Doctor Zhivago (1965), Mulan (1998), and King Arthur (2004). Alexander Nevsky was kept out of circulation due to changing political winds, and then enshrined as perhaps the most influential Soviet-made historical film.