THE Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 was a turning point in 20th century history. In Enemy At the Gates, that battle turns not on the Russian defiance against the all-crushing Nazi boot, but an individual shoot-out between a Russian hotshot played by British pretty boy Jude Law and an ace German marksman played by American stone-face Ed Harris.

Then throw in Bob Hoskins, who transforms Russian leader Kruschev into an aged Phil Mitchell, a croaky Cockney with the least convincing hair since Ian McKellen's Profumo in Scandal, and this Second World War epic goes wastefully and haplessly off the rails. Now add the stilted dialogue, a history lesson in how not to fill the space between the visual images.

Ah, but what visual images. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who previously revealed an eye for the epic in The Name Of Rose and Seven Years In Tibet, goes for the guts and blood of war like Steven Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan.

As with Spielberg, Annaud excels in the early scenes in a ravaged Stalingrad, as the ill-prepared, under-trained Russian soldiers engage in close, chaotic combat with German troops and aircraft; Stalin adamant the city must not fall; Hitler determined to crush this last stand.

In both films, there is the savage horror of brief, brutal bursts of carnage; the quivering fear of death; the grim reality of war. In Saving Private Ryan, it was the breaking of silence by a single bullet to the head that provided the most shuddering image; here it is Russian officers shooting 'deserters' who try to flee from the massacre.

What a disappointment, then, that Annaud fails to match the second defining ingredient of Spielberg's horror show. Again a human story is implanted into the centre of the bloody confrontation, but this time it owes as much to Mills and Boon as the propagandist, myth-making machine being run by Soviet political officer Danilov (Joseph Fiennes, face as thin as a match, eyes as hollow as a politician's resignation speech).

Danilov has spotted the propagandist gold mine represented by the sniper skills of a shepherd boy from the Urals, Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law, doing his Damon Albarn from Blur impression). Germany has targeted him as enemy number one, sending in Major Konig (Harris) to take him out. Hollywood, alas, sends in a love triangle, involving Zaitsev, Danolov and tomboy soldier Rachel Weisz. Cue a Titanic rip-off, a ridiculous love scene, and a disservice to a Russian legend. The enemy at these gates is clich.