Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Since I no longer expect or believe Hollywood has the capacity to make historically accurate films, I will leave this one's many factual gaffes alone.This is a good effort at covering a touchy subject -- my rating reflects only my estimation of the film's entertainment value. The filmmakers were bold to hint at Rohm's and the S.A. leadership's homosexuality (even the rumors about Hitler) and the part their lifestyles played in creating tensions between Hitler and President Hindenburg.I liked that this film was shown in black and white (whether or not it was released that way). The graininess and gray-tones served as a visual reminder that these events transpired long ago, albeit during a time when color film already existed.The most interesting portrayal of course was the title role; I was not familiar with this actor prior to today. I do think it was a mistake to portray Hitler as a robotic maniac, rather than as a sick human being (which he was). This is, of course, the politically correct but intellectually lazy view. It is essential for students of history, politics and warfare to see Hitler as human in order to learn any lessons about how to prevent the rise of future leaders like him. The actual Hitler often showed glimmers of his humanity from beneath his hatred, bitterness and cruelty.All in all, not a bad, but certainly not a great film.

An entertaining miniseries, filmed mostly in Prague and with good production values, about Adolf Hitler and his rise to power, taking him from his childhood (dealt briefly) until the night of long knives.Unfortunately, and presumably in order to avoid any charge of creating sympathy for Hitler, the filmmakers portray him as an always angry and ranting sociopath. Yet, according to most historians, Hitler, despite being an undeniable political monster directly responsible for the death of millions of people, could be also charming and charismatic. Hitler, as portrayed by the Scottish actor Robert Carlyle, is so off putting, you wonder why anyone would decide to follow him. (In this movie, even as a child, Hitler seems to be channeling the bad seed). Some other Hitler movies have been more honest in this respect: the German film Downfall is the first movie that comes to mind, but even the little known Hollywood film from 1944 "The Hitler gang" shows Hitler as friendly and charming with his associates.I found it also somewhat disappointing that most of the actors don't resemble their characters much: the actor playing Goebbels is the one that resemble it most; the legendary Peter O'Toole is fine in his brief turn as Von Hindenburg; Carlyle don't look a lot like Hitler; the actors playing Goering and Rohm none at all. Also unfortunate is that some major associates of Hitler like Himmler do not appear at all here, while the relatively unknown Ernst Hanfstaengl (played by Liev Schreiber) is one of the major characters here.These objections aside, I must finally say that this miniseries is undeniably entertaining and never boring, despite being three hours long.

Wow, this is complete garbage... I sat down to watch this ready to see some piece of history come to life. WRONG! This movie is so inaccurate it becomes harder and harder to like... The movie is over the top and the character of Hitler is wrong.. the Acting is fine, but the details are awful.Like someone else said, nobody would follow this Hitler. While it is common knowledge that many experts considered him some what of a lunatic, this was not the case early on. Yes he was vocal, yes he was hateful, but not to the degree they show him in this film... because it can hardly be called a documentary.Very disappointed, I don't watch documentaries for a neat story, I watch them to see History come to life... If your a history buff and looking for some exciting history piece, this is not that piece.

If anybody really wants to understand Hitler, read WWI history not WWII history. Find out what happened during that war, how soldiers had to live around dead corpses all the time. How so many soldiers went insane, from what they saw during WWI, at the time they called it "shellshocked" now the call it post-traumatic stress disorder. If you learn the true horrors of WWI, you will begin to understand Hitler. You will understand how a human being can become desensitized to death, not because their evil but simply because it was the only way for them too cope with the horrors around them.This movie unfortunately misses that, as so many others do. Read some books on the subject and you should watch the movie "paths of glory", the only good WWI movie ever made. You will see the frustration of the soldiers in that movie, the sense of helplessness, and a utter devaluation of human life, as nothing more than bullet catchers.Thats what this movie misses, its really the key point to understanding Germany. A lost war, where millions and millions of Germans lost their lives, for no real reason. Then comes an utter economic collapse, following the war. Those are the factors that create extremism.The loss of family members and massive poverty will create always lead to extremism. Unfortunately this movie ignored these factors, and has just become another throw away piece of crap to throw on the pile. With really no real value, there are fictional movie's based upon fictional characters that could give you a better idea of Hitler than this does. They just threw Hitlers name on this so it would sell more.