Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The Allies have constantly accused quite rightly the Axe and especially the Nazis to break the Geneva convention which explicitly forbids to attack cities representing no real threat in the course of a war.At the end of the war the allies did exactly what they reproached to their enemies, by bombing Dresden then Hiroshima and Nagasaki.This movie shows what it was to live with that constant threat over one's head and the consequences of the massive bombing of the town. Of course there are goofs, of course there are situations which are mostly improbable or impossible to happen in such situations. But it's not the point and the important thing in such a movie.The important thing is to make conscious young generations who were not even born during WWII of the horrors of war, of hate, of excess nationalism and sense of superiority which all leads to such situation and their terrible aftermath.In 1962 I was 21 and I spent 3 months in Reutlingen, a town near Stuttgart. The family who was my host were former residents of Dresden. They had lost everything. In the rumbles of the house totally destroyed Mrs. Kaiser had recovered a beautiful blue crystal vase. Under the tremendous heat of the bombs, the vase had become oval from its original cylinder shape. I then really understood what it must have been.There's nothing more to say. We have all of us Allies and especially, England, the USA, Russia and our enemy Germany, all without exception, committed a major war crime. We punished one side and had not the courage to face facts and do the same for our side. This is not excusable whatever the motives presented.I'm of this generation who has a full responsibility for the occurrence of WWII and its huge massacre. The Allies especially the French (I'm French) and England for having set up the Versailles treaty and the reparations plan they persisted to have brought to its total accomplishment, ruining the German economy and by doing so setting up the conditions for an extremist mad man to exacerbate the nationalism and the desire for vengeance of the German nation. You never, never take a positive result from hatred, desire of revenge, by humiliating your enemy. Israel today is exactly doing the same mistakes with the Palestinians, the USA by thinking they know best and never make mistakes and by their contempt of others civilizations and culture. All these crazy behaviors are slowly setting up the conditions for future deflagrations, but if these occurs they will not last 5 or 6 years but a few hours and the result will be an empty planet....

I knew about the bombing of Dresden and how it had destroyed the city, yet seeing it enacted brought home the horror in a way reading about it doesn't. Although the main characters were fictionalized, they enabled us to related to how their lives were affected.The ending was sad, but I was traumatized all over again when the "Peace be with you" came on - - in English, Arabic, French, and some other language that I hadn't recognized. At first I thought, "Yes, we need to remember and not repeat that horror" and was glad to see Peace in other languages -- - until it ended and I found that Hebrew had been omitted. It was like Jews didn't exist - they wiped them out in this ending as well as during the War. It was and is still very disturbing. It would have been better not to include Peace.

I was hoping this would be of the calibre of Das Boot and echo the stark realism created by acclaimed German Director Leni RiefenStahl in her documentaries, sadly I was monumentally disappointed. The story line is implausible and defies credulity. An RAF airman is shot down and somehow finds his way to a hospital in Dresden. Anna a nurse whose father runs the hospital and is about to become engaged to a doctor she works with falls in love with the airman and they make love. The next evening at a lavish engagement party the airman turns up disguised as a German officer and dances with Anna. Although well directed and acted, to me it is soap opera of the lowest order.

This is an excellent miniseries that does a wonderful job at portraying the ambivalence of war. Because we follow characters in both England and Germany, we see that neither side is completely to blame for the horrors of WWII, however, neither is completely innocent either. Apart from that, this movie should not be seen as a documentary of the bombing of Dresden. Although the movie is titled "Dresden," it follows characters more than history, though one does learn a little of that as well. Highly recommended for warm characters and a touching drama. This is the kind of movie that you can't stop thinking about days after you've seen it.