Alexander

Original title : Aleksandr. Battle of the Neva

Language : Russian

Year of release : 2008

Run time : 1h55m

Genre : Action / War / History / Adventure

Cast : Anton Pampushnyy

The movie is a history period piece about Aleksandr Nevsky, the prince of Novgorod, who became a legend after defeating the Swedish invaders at the battle of Neva. He ruled from 1252 to 1263, and was canonized in the Russian church in 1547.

In 1239, Andreas von Velven, the magistrate of the Livonian Order, is riding towards the Slav territories. His mission is to observe in secret and submit the young prince Alexander to the order’s rule, as the order wanted to rule over the vast Slavic territory, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains. He and his servants are attacked by thieves, and thinking it’s a knight in need, the young prince with his faithful men decide to help him.

The magistrate is surprised Alexander with a few of his friends, would help him, a lone rider (he says, but he wasn’t alone), putting himself, a prince, in danger. Alexander finds the loss of life sad, but the magistrate disconsiders the dead, as he thought them servants (so they are expendable) and robbers.

Alexander believes in God, quoting the Scriptures, and when doing so, the magistrate tries to flatter him by saying he’s never met anyone like him, as beautiful, brave and wise! Alexander is not impressed by his nice words, as he thinks he hides something, and has him followed.

Andreas doesn’t waste time, and meets with two noble men, who want to get rich and live by the ways of the West, by accepting the West’s “true religion”, and in doing so, betraying their country and prince. Andreas wants a map of the Neva river, with all its dangerous places and the shores. They agree to gather the men willing to fight against the prince’s army, as Novgorod has to surrender to his order. And then, they’ll put their own magistrates, to which the noble men object ,as they want Russians, not foreigners, to lead them .

Alexander decides the magistrate overstayed his welcome, and asks his men to lead him to the borders.

Alexander sends his best friend, Ratmir, to Toropet, with gifts for the woman he wants to marry. Ratmir falls in love with her (I didn’t find her attractive).

Getting ready for the wedding, bringing the princess to his land, Alexander and his men find a man under a bear, half dead, who tells them he himself k1lled the bear with a knife. They take him with them.

At the wedding, the crazy man of the land, that Alexander cares for, for he lost his minds when he lost his tongue after being captured, sees someone poisoning the cup meant for Alexander. Unable to tell him what’s going on, he stops him from drinking it, by drinking it himself, and dying.

Alexander realizes there’s a plot against him, by quite a few people, not knowing who to trust (he even starts suspecting his best friend, as he realizes he is in love with his now-wife, and he went missing since the wedding party when Alexander almost drank the poison), not only to remove him from the throne through an uprising, but cowardly k1ll him, if necessary.

The movie started well, but around the one hour marker it started to bore me. The movie reminded me, when it comes to the look, the set design and costumes, of the Hallmark movies.

It had good fighting scenes.

Although the movie is called “Battle of the Neva” in Russian, that fight is at the end of the movie, and then it ends right off the bat!

The acting was good. I thought Anton Pampushnyy was the best.

The soundtrack was good, although not to my liking, symphonic at times.

You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link, but it only has Romanian translations :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9mqbms

Rating : Could have been a contender !