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Apocalypse Now ReduxRating:
Release Date: 20 November, 2001 Retail Price: $19.99 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (16 total) |
Apocalypse Now Redux Reviews
Redux a TRAVESTY, TRAVESTY, TRAVESTY!
I don't care what Coppola says. He calls the REDUX/redo/re-edit that he put in theaters in 2001 the "definitive version" of Apocolypes Now. He's crazy. He hasn't made a decent film in a long, long time. He took a great and classic film and ruined it, and it's his own. Will he do this to the first two Godfather films? Robert Duvall's gung-ho character has turned into a baffoon, searching for a surfboard that Martin Sheen has stolen. Martin Sheen's character has turned into a warm-hearted guy who loves his crew, plays games with them like stealing surfboards, as opposed to a serious guy who has a very serious mission like in the original. Marlon Brando reads TIME magazine. And there is a scene with a French Plantation that destroys the entire flow to the movie, and plays like a corny dream sequence and is just horrible, with acting so bad it's more of a nightmare. The worst scene in the redux is when Chef and Lance (Fred Forrest and Sam Bottoms) party in a "parked" helicopter with some of the Playboy Playmates from the previous R&R scene. One of the playmates has a birdcage on her head, no joke. This is another scene that kills the entire flow of the movie, and makes Martin Sheen a nice guy, since he is the one who sets up his men with the girls in the first place. Oh the horror of this redux. The Redux is a total travesty. Coppola has ruined his own masterpiece. Imagine Van Gogh, if he'd lived, taking "Starry Night" and adding to it, or DiVinci or Monet or anyone else. Coppola has lost it, completely. And so, the true "horror" isn't the Vietnam war, but the hands of a burnt-out has-been filmmaker mangling one of his best works.
My respect and admiration for Mr. Coppola is of the highest order.
Marlon Brando is excellent as Col. Kurtz and I can't think of any other actor that could have played the good man gone insane and hold such screen presence. Sheen, as Willard, is fantastic in here also, especially his narration, which runs throughout. It's one of the best narrations, if not the best, I have ever heard in a movie. His voice is just haunting as he relates his thoughts on this incredible, nightmare-like adventure. We can identify with his questioning of his mission and the war in general. My favorite character in the movie has to be Robert Duvall's Lt. Colonel Kilgore who "Hoorah!" about the war. Before this film I never pictured Duvall as a wartime cowboy but honestly it's my favorite of his parts to date. He simply nailed his character, which is one of the best in the entire film, as the gung-ho Air Cavalry commander who loves to surf. Maybe a little over the top but he portrayed that role very well.
The plot is a fairly simple one and it doesn't take too much brainpower to figure out what's going on. Willard's mission is to kill Kurtz, plain and simple. But it's the journey of the film that is really its heart and also the dire situations of war itself. In the Redux version we are forced to sit through the extended French plantation scene and the Playboy bunny scene which really adds nothing to the film's entirety other than it makes it a longer journey. I don't feel they take away anything though; it's just a matter of if you want to watch a three and a half hour movie or the original. Through this journey, the film points out the utter futility and irrelevance of the war to the Americans and the massive affect it had on the soldier who fought in it...in fact, that's the entire point. On top of that, the troops were not supported by the public and that could very well have helped cause a character like Kurtz' to go completely mad.
A big war movie lover, this one is up there with `Platoon' and `The Deer Hunter,' all of them classics. All three have their own strengths and add their own twist to the Vietnam War....so to really say one is better than the other is fairly pointless...even if after having most recently view and I think it's a tad better. In the end, `Apocalypse Now' (1979) is a true classic in either version and worthy of the status it's been given. It's is one of the most ambitious films ever made and a great ending for a golden decade of American cinema.
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