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Summary: GOOD MADE BETTER......
Review: THIS IS A MUCH BETTER VERSION OF THE CLASSIC MOVIE. IT IS MORE REALISTIC AND THE STORY IS BETTER TOLD WITH THIS ADDED MATERIAL.
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Summary: The Vietnam Veteran: Lets Kick Him when He's Down
Review: Kung Fu Joe, your mission, should you be boozed up enough to accept it, is to discredit all American servicemen who served in Vietnam by making it seem that the war was prosecuted in the field by the wild bunch of out-of-control cowboys and psychopaths the movie-indoctrinated American public readily imagines is an accurate representation of the average soldier in Vietnam. Why is this? Because leftist filmmakers and writers whose basic anti-Americanism would not be nervy enough to produce a WWII picture wherein the men under arms behave in such a way as to make a khat-chewing, technical-operating juiced-up Somali look like a level-headed and competent soldier WOULD jump at the chance to vilify the American soldiers who fought competently and bravely in the Vietnam war. This film and others like it are a shameful extension of the vilification of soldiers that occurred at the time of the Vietnam war. Rather than being respectful tributes to the many men who tragically lost their lives in the war, such movies basically spit on the graves of American soldiers by creating and perpetuating the myth of the ubiquitous ugly GI that is supposed to typify the men of the Vietnam war.
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Summary: Where are the extras???
Review: Besides the extra footage, there should be more extras on this disc! Where's the "making of" featurette??? That would've made this DVD absolutely wonderful. I've seen it before, and needless to say that it adds such a broader perspective to the film.The extra footage...nothing to write home about. It adds little to the story, and detracts more than it helps. The guy who did the editing on the cutting room floor was a genius. Though seeing the French Plantation scene was a bit interesting. It added a perspective of Vietnam that wasn't there before in the previous cut of the film or in other Vietnam films. It's still a great movie though.
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Summary: "I Love The Smell of Napalm in the Morning"
Review: This film is the darker side to Francis Ford Coppola and it won him a armload of Oscars for this winning Masterpiece about the Vietnam war. Now with the redux, I think it shows more of a light side than the original. Some of the deleted footage is okay, but for the most part its a bunch of propaganda for Coppola. However I give ***** for the original which is just eerie as hell. The story follows a platoon of men to go to Cambodia to asassignate a renegade Coronel, (Marlon Brando). The story was basically just said, but as for the picture, words cannot give Francis Ford Coppola the credit he is due for this dark eerie tale. The special effects were more than 'superb' for its time and still today. From the mentally scarring images to the Oscar worthy performances, Coppola does a superb job in making this, (even though he almost went insane to try to make everything perfect) and out of insanity comes Apocalypse Now. The cast includes: Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Harrison Ford, Lawrence Fishbourne, and Dennis Hopper. If you're addicted to war films like me, then you should love this. (But dont get the Redux, its a waste of money). One of the best Vietnam war movies out and its almost 30 years old! The DVD transfer is superb as well as the art on the disc and DVD. Im not much on films with Martin Sheen, but he will blow your mind away! His performance is that good. One last thing to remember after watching this, "The Horrors...The Horrors".
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Summary: Cut Scenes: How I Feel
Review: I'm not sure if being a combatant my first time in the Viet-Nam conflict would have left me with a feel for this movie. Certainly, my second tour left me very knowing about a heart of darkness that we all must look at... embrace, and then discard. And knowing this about myself, I prefer this movie's original version. Those things that were cut from the original, and shown here on redux, are appropriately cut. Most of the film not in the original are tiny snipets. The longest section is about a French plantation the PBR happens upon. I suppose the intent was to demonstrate how firmly the French were entreanched in Viet-Nam before we ever got there. It really does nothing for the film, and belonged on the cutting room floor. There's another section that shows all the PBR crew getting over with the USO ladies. (We who were there would have given anything to just be near a "round eye'd girl". Kinda fun scene, but again, not really doing anything for the movie. These edited-in parts mostly distract from the original version. They were cut by someone smart. Just my opinion.
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Summary: Read The Book Too!
Review: If you purchase this absolutely amazing motion picture, which I highly suggest that you do, I also highly suggest that you purchase Joeseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness, upon which the movie is loosely based. No matter what you thought of the first release, I guarentee that reading Heart of Darkness will significantly increase your enjoyment and understanding of this release.
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Summary: Redux is interesting exercise
Review: Apocalypse Now Redux is interesting and as an exercise or experiment its quite good. But it feels dull where it was once solid. Where the momentum was strong, now it feels jumbled. Like James Cameron's Abyss directors cut, I can see why so much film was cut out in the original release. In places, many snippets that were edited out of the original release help clean up the narrative, (like when they take Duvall's surfboard and when he sends choppers out looking for it or a few scenes that were switched around from the original) but OVERALL, FOR ME, it isn't as powerful as the original. The scenes with the French who stayed behind are in my viewing eye, quite a waste of time and a BIG detour from the moral drive of the film, which is to find Kurtz. Redux is a daydream, a good one, while the origianl Apocalypse Now was a nightmare.
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Summary: Absolutely STUNNING visuals for a war movie ...
Review: There are some movies than one sees in their youth like 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Start the War Without Me' that seem to stay in the back of one's mind forever, and, 'Apocalypse' is certainly one of these films ..... OK so Brando gets a little nutsy here and the final scenes are wierd to say the least but the aerial shots over the Vietamese countryside and the napalm scenes are well worth the price .... While the story may not bring out the horrors of war the movie does leave the intended impression ....
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Summary: My 100th review is a gem
Review: I was looking for something special for the 100th review I'm writing for Amazon (although I can't seem to find all of the other 99). Originally it was going to be "The Godfather", which is as special as it gets, but I just happened to finish this, and I guess one Coppola-Brando masterpiece is as good as the other. I'll have to save Vito and the boys for number 200. I first saw the original when it came out over twenty years ago. It was, of course, in a theatre, and while I liked it, it didn't move me in a manner that I felt it should. A big reason was that the film was visually dark. Since then I have learned that many theatres will dim the expensive movie bulbs to save money, and doing that to this film should have been a felony. No such problem with the DVD, and I feel I'm seeing a brand-new film, which it just about is. First, the parts in the orginal movie. Just about everything is rich in vibrant colors that just pop my eyes out. Even the scenes that should be dark, like the final ones where we finally see Marlon Brando, are beautifully done. The story involves a military assassin's mission to kill one of his own during the Vietnam war. The target is an officer who has gone insane from the war. While the mission is officially assigned, it's top secret and in another way, doesn't exist. Most of the movie consists of a trip up a river into Cambodia where Martin Sheen seeks out Marlon Brando. The movie makes several stops where the crew encounter experiences that show them the insanity that war causes. The most famous one is where he meets a colonel, played by Robert Duvall, who attacks a village mostly because the waves for surfing are to his liking. We also see a sort-of USO show featuring Playboy playmates, and a battleground that seems to have nobody in charge. The insanity builds with each encounter, and increases even more when he finally gets to his destination. The "redux" involves almost half a conventional movie more of footage. While some of the shorter scenes help flesh out characters, two major scenes take up most of the extra time. These involve a second encounter with the playmates, and an extended scene where they encounter a family of stubborn French colonialists. While we do see more points of view about the war from these, I think they detract from the mission. While it surprised me that Sheen actually gets laid twice during this adventure, and I usually welcome nudity, this time I could have done without it. However, once again, the visual clarity of the film, and the fact that it's a masterpiece make the whole thing worth seeing in this format. Sheen is lean and mean, Brando is big and mean, Duval is goofy and mean, and Lawrence Fishburn is literally a boy in this movie. I believe Dennis Hopper got his comeback in this movie. And does anyone connect the boat chief (Albert Hall) with the judge in the recently deceased "Ally McBeal"? See the things you learn from reading these reviews?
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Summary: The horror....the horror.....
Review: After having played around with his Godfather trilogy many times over the years, Francis Ford Coppola felt it was time to tackle another one of his cinematic beasts from the past, namely Apocalypse Now, his 1979 nightmare Vietnam epic about a group of American soldiers (led by Martin Sheen) heading up river on a mission to assassinate a crazed colonel (Marlon Brando). With Apocalypse Now Redux, Coppola has re-edited his original masterpiece, inserting 49 minutes of additional footage and, though interesting as history, it is debatable as to if the extra scenes actually add to the film in general. Sure, the bonus footage of Robert Duvall's surf and napalm-lovin' Colonel Kilgore is a welcome addition, as are some additional scenes of interplay between the soldiers and a monologue by Brando's character, Colonel Kurtz. Others (an additional encounter with Playboy bunnies, the legendary French plantation sequence) are much less welcome, not only softening the film's grip of terror, but making it seem about twice as long as the 202-minute running time. Thank goodness then for DVD, a medium that can allow viewers to easily decide which version to watch by inserting or dropping any additional scenes at their own pleasure.
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