I had suspected the movie wasn't going to be close to the teaser music video that preceded it—but the extent of difference was truly shocking. All of the titular First Squad members except the protagonist only appear in the movie for a few minutes, which came as a complete surprise. Obviously, none of them are anywhere close to being developed as characters—the protagonist is not an exception, sadly. Naturally, most of them don't even resemble people living in USSR in the 30s/40s. The portrayal of Soviet culture and style of life was given an undeservedly superficial treatment (I chuckled at the wooden toys—I still remember those) culminating in laughable designs that are both stupid and anachronistic, such as Zina's tank top under an unbuttoned winter coat. In winter. Nadya wielding, of all things, a *Japanese* sword using *Japanese* fencing techniques is not any less ridiculous. After all, Russians had a war with Japan at the beginning of the century, and were allied against them again in WW2—that's not to mention that fencing styles such as iaido are completely useless against armored enemy—which constitutes pretty much everyone Nadya fights using her katana. At that point one shouldn't be surprised by a fragile girl parrying a huge blade wielded by a muscular man in heavy armor while fighting in deep snow—it's just par for the course at that point. I mean, we've already brought up cliche occultism scenarios, complete disregard for historical accuracy in design and logic in writing, so why not abolish laws of physics while we are at it?
The movie started abruptly, hopped and skipped throughout its runtime, and ended just as abruptly, suggesting the need for a sequel that will never come—instead of using this time to tell a less ambitious but more coherent story. There's barely any significance in any scene. It's almost as if the whole thing was storyboarded and edited together overnight. It's painful to see an initially workable idea ruined by inept writing and direction. Assuming there even was any writing, of course. It sure looked like the studio crew knew how to put some anime into a movie but had no idea how to put the movie in an anime.
Yet perhaps the most dreadful offender is the live-action documentary shots that very intrusively interrupt the brief moments of action whenever they end up happening. They attempt to explain some of the surreal and nonsensical things, but do a piss-poor job at doing so. The most unintentionally ironic comment comes from a featured psychoanalyst who says that human brain is capable of producing hallucinogenic substances by itself under certain conditions, which is technically correct but completely invalidates the testimonies of the veterans who spoke just prior about unexplained events allegedly having taken place there. These contradictions are never resolved. Neither is the need to explain fantasy schlock with scientific or historic accuracy. It explains nothing, and makes the schlock appear even worse, not in the least by robbing it of screen time that could make it better.
To elaborate, the attempt to build up the atmosphere of war by sharing impressions of the veterans who fought in it is misguided in principle. It looks extremely clunky and breaks the immersion and flow of the movie while robbing it of valuable runtime that could be used to develop the story and characters to make the non-documentary parts worth watching. By this point people should know what WW2 was. Even if they don't, they would have been able to *see* it in the movie if it did a better job at actually showing it. Grave of the Fireflies is an anime that masterfully portrayed the horrors of war without combat scenes, let alone veteran testimonies. Elem Klimov's Come and See (Иди и смотри / Idi i smotri) is a live-action movie where most of the action happens off-screen, yet it instills more primordial dread than most war movies combined. This is how to do it right; interrupting cartoony action with documentaries the way First Squad does it is some next level of idiocy. It could've been funny in a very nihilistic way if the crew had found a veteran to give a testimony about sword-fighting against armored troopers in a nightgown in the winter, which surely was a regular occurrence during WW2, though I guess that was the border they didn't want to cross. But then why make this drivel at all?
I'll touch upon the subject of art and sound quality briefly because there's not much to say about it. I've seen most of Studio 4°C's output, and I know they can do much better. But it's not bad by any means, it's just… average. Action scenes (where we actually get to see them) are borderline acceptable if you don't count the amount of extremely unlikely scenarios, deus ex machina moments, and other tropes so typical of mediocre anime, but wouldn't be able to carry this movie even if there were no other faults with it.
To summarize, this is an ambitious, but horribly put together fantasy flick that builds up a lot of hype and ends up with absolutely nothing to show for it. It's not enjoyable, has no redeeming qualities, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Those who are into war movies, historic events, or action in general, and most of all fellow former USSR residents should avoid it at all costs.
