Die Brücke

The people who made this awful remake should hide and shame. As a German shortly born after the war I saw the original as a boy and that movie has made a lasting impact on me and I have never ever seen a war movie or shall we say a Anti war movie better than the ORIGINAL "Die Brücke". This remake should be burn and forgotten IT IS AWFUL nd waste of time. Look for the original instead. The remake does not even come close to the time it happens, the feeling is all wrong The love story it total out of place and out of context. Even the language is not the language or use of the language during that period of time. Have you ever seen the original "Die Brücke" you will laugh about this stupid remake.

It's near the end of WWII. In a small border village, seven 16-year-old schoolboys are conscripted as the front moves ever closer. They're made to defend the small local bridge. There are also subplots that add nothing but screen time. This uses very little of the material available, and its 100 minute running time, or 96 and a half without end credits, drags at many points. Characterization is less of a priority than illicit material. Maybe they figured they'd need something to wake the audience up. So every so often, there's nudity, sexuality, or war violence. Even though none of it leads to anything.

Franka Potente is an international film star. So once they had her, they expanded her role from the previous versions of this story, combined several characters, and increased her presence. It amounts to nothing. See, before, it was different people, related to the teens, all individually trying to get them out of the war. They don't succeed, because that's what's accurate. When you have just one person doing that, and failing repeatedly, it gets to be annoying to watch. She doesn't even get closure. One scene has the crush of one of the boys take a similar role, and I swear, it's purely so that there's at least *one* other doing some of that. Where are the parents? They're such a strong element in the 1959 movie. Everyone in the military in this are incompetent, and basically every adult German is a monster. This from the same country who, rightly, made us understand Adolf Hitler, himself?

I recommend this purely to those who are too curious to stay away. 3/10

First of all I want to say that I don't know the original movie, but I think thats not important at all. On the other hand I really hope the original movie is better. The story of 7 teenagers forced to fight in the last desperate days of nazi-germanys battle is a typical German war-film-story. Even thou it is not very impressive, it is still the best of the movie. Complains can be made about pretty much everything in the film, because everything in the film lacks sophistication. the look and the atmosphere of the movie are to clean and it feels to empty. even fighting scenes look boring and bad coordinated. the editing is terrible and features some bad continuity mistakes. the dialogs are flat and meaningless. Acting is behind the average. at no time you believe in the characters. Most characters lack a reasonable background story and side-stories that occur don't add to the characters deep at all. in general they are useless, because they don't add to the film except for the duration. the side-plots can be ignored. overall this film is unimportant, badly made and lacks in all important aspects of film-making. If you want to deal with the topic of youth in Nazi-Germany and how it suffered from the fanatical NS-education system, I recommend to see "Napola" instead. that would also spare you from some ridiculous fighting scenes...

The original Die Brücke could be that much appreciated work of art that the fact alone presents too many demands for any conceivable remake. I however found this one surprisingly good, and it certainly was not as bad as some people have claimed it to have been. Why to make just similar movie again?

Seven poorly trained schoolboys are given a mission to hold out against a strategically important bridge. Germany has a lack of manpower by spring 1945, schoolboys fight alongside with old men: the last remaining reserves of the Reich . And the boys are too young to grasp the hopelessness of the situation, unlike their leader who runs away. Movie doesn't anywhere show that the boys were ever trained, but apparently they have some basic training because they can assemble and use several weapons and they can move under cover.

Seven schoolboys hold out against seasoned American troops? Given that they have a good position with effective weaponry (plus the suggested basic training), and the American commander does not want to fight against children, they possibly could even make it. Weapon freaks will notice hereby a plentiness of rarely seen ww2 equipment, save for the one tank whose type I didn't recognize. Some effects are rather lame too, but I have seen worse and have still forgiven them. I give a relatively high rating because I didn't suffer as much watching it than these boys depicted.

... consider it an accident and look for the - really impressive - original! You will spare yourself quite a lousy piece of love story and war action rudely looted from the heritage of the 50's version by Bernhard Wicki. Even Hollywood barely could do worse twisting historical facts and life stories into some sort of spectacular fireworks performed by characters who don't really deserve this description. Good war movies (such as the original one!) should include the stories of the human beings involved, narrated in an empathic way thus helping the viewer to understand or at least imagine how it might have come to all the cruelty - and maybe even how it could be overcome. Otherwise there will be sown rather fascination than consternation. The next war will come too soon anyway. 2/10 just because of occasionally good acting (esp. by the soldier boys) and seemingly accurate requisites (uniforms, armory...).