Scott LeBrun This German film stars the appealing Franka Potente ("Run Lola Run", "The Bourne Identity") as Paula Henning, a talented and ambitious medical student who earns the opportunity to study at the prestigious Heidelberg institution. Her newfound friend Gretchen (Anna Loos) is mostly interested in guys, despite having plenty of brains herself. While Paula finds herself attracted to Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg), she gets wind of a conspiracy being engineered by various personnel to experiment on living bodies, all sense of ethics be damned.Ultimately, "Anatomie" doesn't head anywhere surprising, becoming more and more conventional as it goes along. Still, while it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it entertains in decent enough fashion, having clearly been inspired by such things as early David Cronenberg. At every point, we're reminded of the horrors that can be visited upon the human body. Therefore, there is some enjoyable gore and violence, and some that is disturbing at the same time.Our villains are actually revealed sooner than one might think, so what follows is a little "the end always justifies the means" speechifying (but not too, too much of it) from these determined individuals. Of course, some of them are committed to their cause, and there are others that are simply psychotic.There's a little bit of sex, as well as some nudity, so "Anatomie" delivers on a visceral level. It's very slick from a technical viewpoint, with some wonderful widescreen photography (especially outdoors).The clinical approach of our villains is contrasted with the understandably reviled, emotional reactions of our heroine Paula, convincingly portrayed by Ms. Potente. Benno Furmann, Holger Speckhahn, Traugott Buhre, Oliver Wnuk, and Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey co-star, with a particularly showy role for sexy blonde Loos.Nothing great here, but certainly this is all watchable enough.Seven out of 10.

MovieSonic I've watched a fair few German films now as part of my mission to improve my language skills so I feel confident in pointing out one or two commonalities I've noticed among them: No matter what year/decade German films are made, they always feel like they were made in the 90s. Granted, Anatomie was made in 2000 but even more recent German films (and TV shows) always have a 90s feel to them due to various reasons, the most prominent being the typically all-white cast. German films are very 'Disney' in the sense that there seems to be this 'ideal' vision of what Germany looks like or rather, what the German audience looks like but the reality is that times have changed and even Disney is finally updating its thinking. German films need to diversify, stop portraying women as simple stereotypes, and stop promoting smoking in films. I am sick to the back teeth of seeing the main protagonists light up in every single German film I watch. Not just because 'morals' but also because it's distracting. As soon as someone takes that first drag, you know their breath absolutely stinks so if this is happening right before a love scene, it's completely off-putting.Another thing I've noticed is that German films will often have a fascinating premise and will start off strong but will then falter towards the middle, like they don't know how to properly pace a film or write an engaging story from start to finish. I sometimes wish people would send me their scripts for review before selling them to studios! I did feel that the film was very predictable but luckily, Anatomie doesn't try to be a 'true' mystery. The bad guy(s) is revealed fairly early on but there was at least one twist which I didn't figure out until near the end.A special mention for Benno Fürmann; a powerful actor who simply terrifies in every scene. He also worked with Franka Potente in the superb Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (2000) where he put those tremendous eyes of his to good use too.After the opening and an initial genuinely gruesome and terrifying scene, the horror of which Hostel (2005) later replicated, Anatomie loses momentum and meanders down an irrelevant path instead of focusing on the daily duties of the students at the medical school. That was a huge missed opportunity and like so many other German films I've watched, it felt like a case of 'the audience is invested now, we can switch to auto-pilot'.I only watched this a few hours ago and already, I can't remember the ending. There was another ending during the credits so maybe that's interfering. No, I've got it: it was an extremely predictable, although fitting ending.If you have time to kill, this is definitely worth a watch. It will however, be almost instantly forgotten.6/10

jfarms1956 Anatomy is a movie best enjoyed by those who are between 16 and 45 who enjoy horror films, particularly those horror films with a medical/hospital theme. This is not a prime time film, but a late night or rainy afternoon film. I usually like horror films but this one lost most of its enjoyment for me because the sound track was off. It was either the sound track or the actors were not speaking English. The mouthing of the words did not match up with the speaking of the words. This pretty much destroyed the film for me. The film is rather a slow paced film, until it nears the end. Then, during the chase, the pace picks up. However, the ending has a little bit of a twist on it. Popcorn and pizza make great snacks for this low budget film. Enjoy.

Matt Kracht There may be some slight spoilers in this review, but no worse than what you'd get from reading the plot synopsis.I'm surprised that people are comparing this to Scream and other teen slashers. The protagonists in this movie are students in medical school, not high school kids. That may be a minor distinction, but the movie is obviously targeted to a slightly older demographic than teens. For one thing, most teen slashers are rated PG-13, making them really quite limp and inhibited.At first, I thought this was going to be more "torture porn" than anything else, given the outrageous and over-the-top torture sequence early in the movie. Interestingly, it actually turned into a somewhat derivative slasher movie, despite having an interesting setup. The basic plot involves a gifted medical student discovering a secret society in her university. Long thought dead, they are composed of Machiavellian physicians who believe that sacrificing a few innocent people to advance medical research is more important than ethics. Predictably, they have some psychopaths among them who are more interested in live dissection than any kind of research.I liked the idea of this secret society, and there were some truly disturbing scenes in this movie. The whole concept of that secret society got under my skin, partly because the characters really did seem to believe that what they were doing was for the greater good. However, there were so many stupid scenes involving the characters being goofy and horny that I found the movie difficult to take seriously. As I understand it, this is mostly because I watched the dubbed version, which is supposed to truly destroy any mood or atmosphere set by the original German actors.Still, I liked it, despite the best attempts by the American voice actors to sabotage the movie. If I'd seen the original German version, with subtitles, I think I'd like it better. Still, no matter what language the characters were speaking, I think there was too much filler in the middle and not enough time spent developing the secret society.I recommend this movie to people who like conspiracy thrillers and slasher fans. However, thriller fans might be grossed out by the horror elements, and horror fans might be bored by the dramatic elements. Make sure you see the subtitled version. I've heard worse, but it's still distractingly bad.