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The Alamo (Widescreen Edition)Rating:
Release Date: 28 September, 2004 Retail Price: $19.99 OUR Price: $15.99 You SAVE: $4.00! Cast: |
The Alamo (Widescreen Edition) Reviews
Inspirational story with great performances
I am a native-born Texan, and maybe that made this movie better in my sight, but I don't think some of the reviewers understand exactly how much the story of the Alamo means to Texans. It is a symbol of our hard, long, brutal, and costly fight for independance from Santa Anna's government. In this sense, it has become a story larger than life for many Texans, and because of this, most of the participants in the battle are raised up to Godly stature, and we subsequently forget their flaws and humanisms, and begin to believe that they were beings who could do no wrong.
The 1960's film did little to quell these feelings, as all of the Texans were shown as mentally and physically strong men, who seemed to have everything together in their quests for freedom.
This is where the new film shines. Apart from the obvious pros of this version in the INCREDIBLE cinamatogrophy, this version shows for the first time the human side of the fabled heroes of the Alamo. You see, for the first time, the humanistic flaws that occupy each character, making them more fellow humans than Achiles-like heroes who have no depth. You see William Barrett Travis's lack of natural leadership, and his insecurity dealing with Jim Bowie, who was more of a natural leader. Also, the biggest advance, to me, was that the film makers especially un-imortallized Davy Crockett, who has been long regarded as the untarnished hero whose life before the Alamo is largely unknown. This movie accurately depicts the struggles that Crockett experienced before the Alamo, and shows that he was not in actuality the Invinceable, unbeateable, Man's man whom he is often shown as, but he is a man who struggles constantly with his guilt of past actions and struggles to keep up with the mysticism surrounding his name.
Whereas the 60's version showed a group of natural-born heroes, similar to the epic heroes of Greek Mythology, the new version of THE ALAMO shows all of the men in the Alamo, the heroes included, as common men who became national heroes because they rose above their vices and disputes to fight a battle they knew they would lose. Why would they do this? Because they believed in their cause of freeing Texas from Santa Anna. The new version shows a group of men who stood up for their ideals and fought and died bravely, knowing their fate but continuing on anyway, because they believed.
Also, there is a scene where Davy Crockett, who is masterfully played by Billy Bob Thorton, plays his fiddle in concordance with the Mexican band's performance of "Slit Throat". If the rest of this movie was pure garbage(which it isn't), this one scene is so beautiful and masterfully done that it would warrant buying the film.
If you are interested in seeing Mythology-type, flat characters fight to the death, then check out the 60's version of The Alamo, but if you want to see the story of a rag-tag group of real men fight for a cause they beieve in and become REAL heroes because of their willingness to die for a cause they believe in, then see this version of THE ALAMO.
Uninspired.
I guess I went into this movie with expectations just a little too high. It looked promising - good cast, good story, nice history. Looks however, were deceiving. I felt like I was trapped in the Alamo with this group of freedom fighters. I was trapped waiting for the movie to end! The acting was decent, but the story was slow and uninspiring. The history itself was not very accurate and overall I felt like I wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life. Not recommended.
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