Tuesday, September 03, 2002
Watched a couple of movies this afternoon.Behind Enemy Lines... I'd seen trailers of this a while back and wanted to see it in the cinema, but never got round to it, so I've been waiting for it to come out on dvd for a while. Hmmm. I'm not sure it was worth the wait. The thing is, it's been done before, and better. BAT21 was a vastly superior film, also starring Gene Hackman. This just seemed cliched.
The other film I watched has also been done before, in the form of Platoon and Hamburger Hill (though certainly not Apocalypse Now, as they suggest on the box), but unlike Behind Enemy Lines, We Were Soldiers is a brilliant film, and superior to those that have gone before it. I don't care much for Mel Gibson lately, though his earlier work's great fun... in this though, he's really awesome, even if his accent does sound a little dodgy. Harrowing, traumatic, emotional and action packed... this is what a Vietnam war movie should be, it shows the horror of war, and the bravery of the men who fought it, and does it in an intelligent and sensetive manner. There's no gung-ho bullshit here... they just tell it like it is.
The only thing that bothers me is the notes on the packaging. Why do they have to compare every Vietnam movie to Apocalypse Now? That film wasn't about the Vietnam war, it was just based in it. It was an exploration into the darkness of the human soul, and an examination of insanity, going further into uncharted territory than any film that has followed has dared to tread. The people making these comparrisons need to wake up and try to understand what it is they're watching.
Labels: movies
Steve 11:02 PM [+]
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