Rating: 
Summary: Too Damn Long.
Review: Nearly 3 and Half hours! The new scene with the Playboy Bunnies was, well, worth a second look, and there is no doubt that Cupolla erred when he cut the act with the French Plantation owner, it lent so much to the overall understanding of the time, however all in all when the credits roll I don't think you have gained much over the original. Still, if you are fortunate enough to have never seen the original this is the version to see. Just plan on a couple of intermissions.
Rating: 
Summary: A spectacular, dark war movie
Review: "Apocalypse Now Redux" is quite possible my favorite war movie. The acting is superb, mainly Marlon Brando and Robert Duvall. Based on a story called "The Heart of Darkness," the movie is about a Captain in the Vietnam War who is introduced in a very bad state. He's not in the jungle fighting, but he wants to be there, he misses it, and he sort of starts to break down. Then, he finally gets what he is hoping for: a mission. His mission is to go upriver into Cambodia, which is known as being particularly "hairy," and there he must hunt down a military colonel gone mad. The colonel assassinated people that he believed were double agents, and then disappeared into Cambodia. The young Captain, played exceptionally well by Martin Sheen, must hunt him down and terminate the colonel "with extreme prejudice." Along the way, he meets up with the crew of the boat that is taking him upriver, and also meets a very interesting Robert Duvall, who is a military officer that orders some men to fight, and others to surf. There are many other things that happen in the 3 hour and 22-minute-long movie. "Apocalypse Now" shows how horrible war really is, and gets to be rather intense. It is the darkest war movie that I've seen, and I definitely recommend it if you like a well-made war movie.
Rating:
Summary: Redux
Review: I have both the original and redux versions of Apocolypse Now.The Original has always been one of my all time favorite films. The true definition of a masterpiece. Redux? Well it's clear, after watching Redux, why they cut scenes from films. Sure they are interesting (it's nice to see the original version), but most of the cut scenes make Cpt Willard (Martin Sheen) seem like a buddy to the boat crew. From stealing the surfboard to getting playmates for the boys inside the helicopter. Cpt Willard (sheen) is better in the original when he seems distant from the crew. The French plantation scene is a total waste (but nice to see in comparison). I recommend you get both(too bad they don't have it on one DVD).
Rating:
Summary: possibly the greatest film of all time
Review: Ok, i have to admit, i am biased here. This film is less an examination of war than the nature of man. Every character in it is amazing. The extra footage is not all necessary, although it fills in some things that were missing and adds more. Just knowing what went on during the filming of this is enough to astonish, without even watching the film itself. This film catapults you into the nightmare of the human psyche. Cinematically, the film is an odessy of spectacular visual and audial sensory assaults (i wish you could have olfactory components in movies - this deserves it). It could be a young knight, sent forth by his lord to slay a fearsome beast. In this case, the stark reality of Vietnam is the backdrop and beast is a creation of the lord gone awry. Without overtly judging a single thing about the war or people in it, the film clearly depicts the strong parallels between good and evil, and how thin a line it is that we walk.
Rating:
Summary: ENOUGH ALREADY
Review: MAYBE, THE GREATEST WAR MOVIE NOT REALLY A WAR MOVIE MOVIE EVER MADE MADE EVEN BETTER, MAYBE.
Rating:
Summary: What a great movie is
Review: I like all kinds of movies so I'm not always set on just one genre. I found Apocalypse Now excellent. It's not a war movie where you see all the war grounds fighting or anything. It's behind the scenes about what really did go on sometimes in vietnam (setting up to kill commanders) The music in the background fits the time perfectly and Francis Ford Coppola is excellent. Now with the new Redux version you get even more footage of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Older now...
Review: Maybe it's because I'm older now, but having just watched this movie on DVD for the first time since seeing the original in 1979 (when I was 16), it made so much more sense to me than it did back then. And my appreciation for just how well this movie was filmed and put together is dramatically enhanced; this is a superb movie, and they don't make them like this anymore. Because there was such a long amount of time between when I first saw it and now, I don't know the extent to which it was re-edited, but the characters made a bigger impression on me, the visuals made a bigger impression, and the story made a bigger impact on me. Regarding the two long scenes that were added (the second Playmate scene and the French Plantation scene), honestly, while they did much to explain some things, they seemed somewhat out of place. But regardless, I think this is an amazing film. And the quality of the DVD (video transfer, sound) is great...
Rating: 
Summary: Love Apocalypse Now, hate the Redux
Review: Get the original, the extra 49 minutes are worthless. The only thing it adds is 3 pairs of naked breasts, some boring frenchmen, and, of course, 49 long minutes.Every deleted scene I've ever seen on a DVD I had been glad that is was cut, for Apocalypse Now Redux I felt that much much more so.
Rating:
Summary: Well, it is bigger...
Review: ...APOCALYPSE NOW was a long rambling film, that should have been edited to a much shorter length. Coppola was simply too ambitious and let the film get away from him. Now, the REDUX attempts to improve the original by adding instead of subtracting. While REDUX does explain some things, such as why the Playboy Bunnies were in the movie, the movie would have been much better, certainly easier to digest, if it had been less ambitious in it's scope and more concise in it's message. It's still a great movie though. Most males who see it for the first time, become obessed with it and watch it over and over until they walk around quoting lines from it, and you begin to worry about their sanity. (Some Vietnam War vets tend to see it as campy though, despite the horror it contains.) But it's worth the price just having a DVD for no other reason than to watch the helicopter attack scene, which is one of the best action sequences ever.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorrowfully kebabing another sacred cow.
Review: Apocalypse Now Redux (Francis Ford Coppola, 2001) [Before reading this, please take note: the original cut of Apocalypse Now resides on my all-time top-100 films list. I don't hate the original. Honest.] It is a long-known fact of Hollywood life that directors and studios are most at each others' throats when it comes time to edit a film for final release. Judging by the various directors' cuts I've seen over the years, ninety-nine percent of the time, the director is right (anyone who's seen both the theatrical release and directors' cut versions of Profondo Rosso knows exactly what I'm getting at, and it's hard to argue with the superiority of directors'-cut releases of such films as Aliens, Bladerunner, etc.). One percent of the time, the director is wrong. Francis Ford Coppola's new, fifty-three-minute-longer, cut of Apocalypse Now rides right on the line. It's hard to call Apocalypse Now Redux a true director's cut; the full film runs two hours longer than Redux (and can be found on the underground market readily, if one knows where to look). However, the almost-hour of footage put back in to the film gives the viewer an idea of where Coppola was headed with the full version, and in all honesty, it's nowhere the original cut doesn't go. Much of the extra footage just repeats the same themes over and over again that we got the first time, and the repetition, along with the greater continuity one gains in the longer cut, dull the dadaist quality that makes the original such a hallucinatory experience. Not to say that all the cuts the studio made originally were right on. The two climactic episodes in the film, those with Kilgore and Kurtz, are lengthened nicely; while Marlon Brando could have been much better-used (as he seemed to be in the original cut; here, he goes from being a haunting, psychotic dictator to just another antiwar protestor who's gone way out of control), Robert Duvall's turn as Kilgore is underlined as the brilliant role it always has been, and during the Kurtz scenes, Dennis Hopper and Martin Sheen both shine more than they previously had. The lengthenings of these two parts are a minor portion of what got put back in, but they're well worth the cost of a rental for those who are familiar with the original cut. The main portion of the restored footage, though, could have been left on the cutting room floor without too many people noticing. They're there to reinforce the horrors of war, etc., but it's not as if even the less astute viewers of the original cut aren't going to pick up on the theme without having these extra scenes added. I never thought I'd say it, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the new cut. Twenty or so years from now, maybe we'll get an official release of the five-and-a-half hour version that'll redeem this, but for the moment, I strongly recommend seeing Apocalypse Now Redux only for those who have already seen the original and want to deepen their understanding of what Coppola was on about. Those coming to the movie fresh would be better served by finding a pal with a really good home theater system and renting the DVD of the original release first. Someone wiser than I once said of the original cut, "Apocalypse Now is not about Vietnam; Apocalypse Now IS Vietnam." Given that, Apocalypse Now Redux is, unfortunately, "about" Vietnam in a way the original cut never was. ** ½
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