Die Nibelungen

Short of producing 2+ hour versions of each of the 4 operas in the Ring Cycle, this is simply excellent storytelling. Truly entertaining and worthy of viewing.

Given the obvious production and time constraints common to almost all television productions, the writers, director and cast have made a quite enjoyable film based on the Norse legends. They know they can't hope to surpass more traditional Wagner opera productions or the cinematic spectaculars like Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia and they don't try. They simply succeed brilliantly at presenting a quite entertaining and enjoyable film variation of the well known tale.

Kudos!!

I've watched both parts and they entertained me very well. The second part was better, because the role of Kristanna Loken ("T3") was bigger and the fightscenes looked much better! This is a very good TV movie and Benno Fürmann ("The Order"), Max von Sydow ("Minority Report") and Alicia Witt ("Vanilla Sky") did a great job. Julian Sands ("Warlock") was very cool as the bad guy ;)

The story was different to the original German saga, but it was enjoyable. The effects were also very exciting for this budget! (23 Mio.)

First part: 6/10 Second part: 8/10

Actually it started out OK but the ending was really crappy. Imagine "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring" end with Frodo destroying the Ring just because the director wanted the story to fit into a 3h time frame.

The left out Act 2 and 3 of the Nibelung Saga where Kriemhild kills here Brothers, Sacrifies here Family, her Children and here country just in the name of revenging here husband. Where Hagen hides the gold of the Nibelungs in the Rhein never to be found again.

This really is what the Nibelung Saga makes it that great and tragic and they killed it off.

So I was pretty disappointed in the entire movie after seeing the end. In summary I cannot recommend this Movie what SAT1 called "The Movie event of the year" they better should have made it into a 2-3 parter which the actual story being told. So if you want to see the Nibelungs their was an film made in the 70's which the whole story in it.

Uli Edel did a damn fine job on resurrecting the Volsung Saga. I think that "Das Nibelungenlied" is not as much of a fairy tail as LOTR what gives this ballad a bit more of the realistic drama-feeling. No offence, but this is not the usual happy-ending US-Style flick that most of the audience is used to. Maybe that is the reason for this quite low avg. rating.

I really couldn't imagine anyone better suited for the role of cold queen of the cold Island. Kristan(n)a Loken prove to be as cold as beautiful, also a great actress in a role with much more script than she had in T3. Arnold knew back than that "she'll be back!" and she indeed is in this truly wonderful movie.

Based on the myth that influenced Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, The Ring of the Nibelungs shares many similarities with the great man's work.

Although limited I thought the special effects were excellent particularly the dragon. Siegfrid's accent was off putting but no less so than the posh English accents that many of the cast had considering this is meant to be set in Scandinava.

If you like fantasy and Lord of the Rings you will enjoy this. The soundtrack is very haunting and compliments the film very well. Kristanna Loken is gorgeous and although her acting isn't up to scratch, she does look great on screen ;)