World War II: Les héros de l'ombre

With seasoned war film veterans this film really disappoints. Mainly because of the 1990's CGI effects and not being realistic.

They use several clichés; unlimited ammo, inaccurate spraying of bullets when they shoot they're machine pistols, guys falling BEFORE the shot hits, and they fall several meters when they get shot, the Russians and the Germans speaks perfectly good English.

I don't know how much Jürgen Prochnow got to play a part in this movie, judging by his acting, not enough...

The only good thing is that that you get to see Vinnie being Vinne and beats up several guys on his own, which would be expected.

A lot of not great acting in this movie..

I like WW2 movies. It's not that I expected a lot from this one. Overall it let me down. I have enjoyed some of the main actors in other movies. The premise was solid. But the overall feel of the movie was it was trying too hard. This is a B movie at best. I watched the entire movie and was mildly entertained. Set your expectations low. It seems that any "new" war movie is either a blockbuster or a sub-par offering. My personal rating system is fairly simple. If I watch the movie in it's entirely it automatically gets a 5, because it did what it was supposed to do. It entertained me. Company of Heroes will go on my shelf and probably never be watched again. It must of been a straight to DVD release. http://thelemondreport.blogspot.ca/

On viewing this film I was excited by the cast. As a fan of both Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers seeing cast members from both made me giddy with anticipation on watching the film.

All in all the film story is quite good - I liked it. The acting is fine on most parts as you would expect from the cast - lets face it, several of the cast crew are more than qualified to fulfil their roles.

I cannot believe the annoyance allowed to be taken over by this film by the dull and out of place sound effects and music - music being my main gripe. What on earth was the sound production crew doing? If you watch any good war film dating back to the 40's the music is not the bug of any film, until I saw this. There was absolutely no need for the music over the scenes, it made the film feel cheap (OK it is low budget) where no music would had made it feel realistic. The sounds of tank movements, back ground noise, shots, explosions would have made this film feel 200 times better rather than the music. Why? The sound effects ruin the picture and atmosphere.

In general, the effects on video are OK. If there was a way to improve this picture just leave the voices in, delete pretty much all music and replace with sound effects. Score would then be an 8/10 (for a low budget film).

I am at a loss why the hell the director commissioned the music.

This could probably be sorted with someone with skill re-recording the sound. It takes away "the edge".

I am watching Company of Heroes presently. The story is set in the Battle of the Bulge period. The force on the attack are Americans. Normally in a war one uses the weapons of your own side. The "sniper" hero is carrying a post-war FN-49 rifle. It was first issued to a military unit in 1949. Another soldier in the unit was carrying a British issue Number IV Mark 1 or Mark 2 SMLE infantry rifle.

Their historical sins were not limited to the American unit. It may sound trivial, but the babe spends half the movie in pants. That may sound trivial but the Feuhrer forbade women to wear pants. She wouldn't go into a Nazi base in tight fitting slacks.

Well, you may think that's all trivial but that's just immediately ended the suspension of disbelief for me. It only gets worse from there. The plot is equally ludicrous. Let's just say that by the time the whole mess had happened, we have managed to run into a Russian who speaks excellent English and a British bar brawler who both save the day in their own way.

So, is it a "stay away" movie? No. If you REALLY need something to soothe your craving for some violence or a 21st Century politically correct WW II movie, this will fit the bill quite well. But that's about all.

The producers of "Company of Heroes" tried to make a World War II film. They get credit for the effort. But the finished product makes one wonder how serious an effort they made. Or maybe, one should question the ability of modern filmmaking to proximate historical things with any semblance of reality.

The plot for this movie comes from a video game. That's OK – fiction is fiction. The one thing it has is a big serving of action. I watched the bonus video on making of the movie. Some of the production people and cast described the lengths they went to for authentic props. For instance, they got a Russian tank that closely resembled a German Tiger tank. They duplicated it in several shots to give the impression of a column of tanks. They made one wooden model German anti-aircraft gun and moved it from place to place to represent many such guns.

But the anti-aircraft gun looked shiny and freshly painted. It didn't look like a weapon that had been in combat for three or four years. Wherever we saw anti-aircraft guns, it was the same shiny, brand-new looking phony prop. And the tanks all looked the same. They didn't smudge the tank or change its appearance from scene to scene. So, it was obviously the same one. The aircraft used were all computer generated, and aerial CGI never looks real to me – or to other viewers I know.

As I said, the film did have lots of action. But that was so unreal from two standpoints. Most of the GIs were using Tommy guns. None appeared to have cylinder magazines, so they would have had 20-round or 30-round box magazines. We see several of the GIs firing the submachine guns repeatedly. They had to be peeling off scores of rounds. But never do we see anyone changing an empty magazine. Indeed, they never seem to run out of bullets. The only time we see men carrying rifles – which most of the enlisted men in an infantry unit would have, is in the early part of the film, with the snipers.

The movie had the "feel" of a video game throughout. Not only did the GIs have unlimited bullets in all their Tommy guns, but they mowed down the Germans by the dozens. In scenes with several Germans firing on them, we only occasionally see one of the Americans being hit, while they take out scores of Germans. Finally, even the filming outdoors in Bulgaria with the snow on the ground didn't look real. Maybe because digital video is so sanitized, it doesn't look real.

This movie took place around the time of the Battle of the Bulge – in late 1944. When they learn about the Germans working on an atomic bomb, the GIs don't question it at all. They remark as though they knew what an atomic bomb was – even though it hadn't been invented yet. Some scientists and a very few top government officials knew about the efforts to make an atomic bomb, and what it was. But very few people had such knowledge before the U.S. dropped the A-bombs on Japan in August, 1945.

There isn't much more than can be said about this film. It left me feeling as though I had just watched someone play a war video game.