Rating: 
Summary: 'Redux' brings us back down the river in style
Review: The first time I saw "Apocalypse Now", it was on the tiny TV in my parent's bedroom. The sound was horrible, the film wasn't letterboxed, and my fifteen years on the planet were not enough to appreciate the scope of the film. Thus, my memories of the movie were always clouded by this brutal experience; that it was drab and too long and terribly boring. Recently, more than ten years since that infamous first time, I got a chance to see the new director's cut (ahem, the "Redux" version) in an IMAX theatre with glorious digital sound. I was blown away by what was probably the most viscerally intense moviegoing experience of my life.Eleanor Coppola's stunning documentary, "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse", would lead you to believe that hubby Francis' final product was a rambling mess of a movie. It's a backstage document of the production's rambling improv scenes, budget overruns, recuts, and on-the-fly script revisions... how can all of this lead to a coherent movie? Well it does. Every moment is savoured, every shot perfectly composed, every line of dialogue a perfect fit to the overall narrative (even Brando's incoherence toes the line). Within the movie's perfect whole, Coppolla also managed to capture some truly sublime moments: Robert Duvall's Col. Kilgore, unflinching even at the centre of a storm of explosions; the two men trying to hang on to the Playboy-copter, as it makes its getaway; heavy enemy fire emerging suddenly from the forest; the naked bodies hanging from the trees in Kurtz' compound; Sheen rising from the river, face painted camouflage; and Kurtz, lost in his book of poetry, realizing he's not alone and turning towards Willard with supreme awareness of what is about to happen. These are moments that can be appreciated on an intellectual, aesthetic, and visceral level. Wondrous! My favourite part, or parts, was Coppola's dual use of the Doors' song, "The End". In the beginning, it introduces the languid pace of the film's first half, and alludes to the horrors to come. In the end, Coppola's cuts Kurtz' murder scene perfectly to the rising rhythms of the song's denouement, intersplicing shots of a ritual bull slaughter for good measure. The song's themes of madness, incest, and murder dovetail nicely with the film's themes. The cast is uniformly perfect. Martin Sheen doesn't say much, but he does get to brood and contemplate quite openly, letting the audience into his thought process. And his voiceover narration, in that wonderfully deep and resonant voice, is the most effective use of that tired technique that I can remember. Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper bestow mountains of comedic energy to the film's first and last halves respectively. Duvall, as the whacked out commanding officer who receives the love of his men even when his methods are unsound, is a pillar of strength. Hopper on the other hand, is beaten down physically and mentally, as a photojournalist who's spent too much time in Kurtz' warped company. And Marlon Brando, overweight, bald, and mumbling, manages to portray a perfect end to Col. Kurtz' life. There are those who bemoan Brando's performance as self-indulgent and nearly insane, but if you think about it, aren't these the best adjectives to use to describe the Colonel himself? Brando nails it. As for the additional scenes, added to the "Redux" version, they mostly work. The stealing Kilgore's surfboard scene is a truly giddy moment, but it is more important in that it colours Willard as a doer rather than just a passenger along for the ride in the film's first half. And it gives the boat a perfect reason for being caught in the thick jungle, right before Chef sees the tiger. The second Playboy Bunny scene wonderfully contrasts fantasy with reality. Chef and Johnson take their turns with the girls (the one dressing up his girl to look like another Bunny he's obsessed with; the other dressing up his girl in camouflage), in the midst of a muddy downpour. It's hardly a romantic scene; in fact, it's just the opposite, especially with Clean lurking around, noisily waiting for his turn. These scenes worked. The French Plantation sequence doesn't. It starts out fine, detailing a ragged funeral. But the later dinner scene, which redundantly identifies the movie's main themes (clumsily, I might add), does so with endless prattle that eventually degenerates into needless whining. This is the one sequence in the whole film that bored me. Other than this one flaw, "Apocalypse Now Redux" is a perfect movie. Do yourself a favour and check out the film in the grandest and most technologically advanced theatre you can find. It's the only way to do the film justice.
Rating:
Summary: One of the very best films of all time!!!
Review: Just to let you know, I'm not a huge fan of war movies. I checked out this classic film for the very first time and I was totally mesmerized with the dark character study of a war film. The acting was top-notch, the story very moving, and the settings of the film very wonderful. "Apocalypse Now" is one of those films where it will stay with you for a very long time after the ending of the film.
Rating: 
Summary: Original Apocalypse Now vs. Redux
Review: In what now appears to be a Hollywood fad where directors go back and try to make their movies even better by adding more scenes they "liked" but were cut out of the original, we get the same here: the original Apocalypse Now [1979] and now this newer expanded Redux version [2001].
The most noticeable part that they added to the Redux version is an entire French plantation in the middle of nowhere, something about as logical as finding Atlantis while crossing the Pacific Ocean. And it of coarse has an attractive lady there as well, something to help pass a night for our hero on his adventure up the river, but what is the purpose?
However the most important change is at the very end of the movie, probably something few even notice but why they did this is another mystery.
In the original he leaves by the boat and they say the movie has ended, yet the screen credits roll and they show the entire area where they left being bombed to smithereens, meaning they completed the wish of the nutty Colonel Kurtz.
In the Redux version it only shows a black credit screen, so no bombing, no salvation, nothing.
Overall the extra minutes add little to this movie and may actually slow it down too much, so I give this three stars and the original five stars. I only wish they would leave the great movies as they are and stop trying to make even more money by giving us longer versions with unrelated and irrelevant parts added like this one.
It would be interesting to know how this movie would have fared with Oscar nominations in this form, my guess is it would have done far worse. However in either form it is a worthy movie, but the original surpassess this version rather easily.
Rating:
Summary: The quintessential American movie
Review: The great film, APOCALYPSE NOW, although certainly not the greatest American Film ever made, plays much like America herself (himself?). Coppola said during the film's premier "the film isn't about Vietnam, it is Vietnam!" He certainly could be talking about his native country as well as his creation perfectly captures the glorious imperfections that is the United States.
Especially now in its REDUX form.
Like America, APOCALYPSE NOW is a sea of mixed images and contradictions: it is frequently pretenious and obnoxious, exploitive and reflective, overbearing and white male dominated, carthatic and broad, bold and imperialistic, beautiful and unforgiving, mad, violent, reckless, sloppy, over stuffed with great ideas (some fullfilled-others half baked), exhilerating and mortifying, haunting and sentimental, holy and evil, deadly and vibrant, rough and cultured, exposing and yet filled with denial, terrifying and harrowing, reverent and still extremely defiant, plentiful and wasteful, independent yet slavish, liberal and somehow conservative in its world view and all these ingredients make the film ultimately fascinating and stunning.
There has never been anything like it before or since. It is an experiement no film maker will ever be willing to gamble with again in the creation process. Like a true work of art, this film is unique and one of a kind. Coppola's film reaches the hallmark of many great works of art- it refuses to allow the viewer to sit on a philosophical fence.
Because the film is pure cinema in its use of visual and sonic images to tell a story, Coppola forces the viewer to react firstly emotionally to the narrative (the intellectual side can be engaged later if need be). One will either hate it or love it-there will be no middle ground.
This is much like the world's image of America as a country. All one has to do is look at the foreign press to realize we are viewed in such devisive terms. Based too, on the many views of this film, the world is split as to whether or not this film is a work of a mad genius or an ugly and pretentious waste of time.
In that respect, the only other film that comes close to NOW is in fact, Kubrick's 2001. For this reviewer, APOCALYPSE NOW is the film 2001 tries so desperately to be. Whereas I find Kubrick's film to be distant and cold, Coppola's film is the opposite: immediate and captivating.
NOW is not the work of a cold visual genius, it is instead the work of a fevered madman desperately holding on to his camera in an effort to keep himself from falling into the abyss. Based upon his career since, Coppola didn't return from the jungle- much like America herself in oh so many examples.
Although not a perfect film, APOCALYPSE NOW is a great film. It is the quintessential American Movie.
Rating: 
Summary: You really have to be kidding me.....
Review: I'm sorry but I just don't get it.
This is a long movie
This is a boring movie
I could never understand why people got so into this flick. I find it a great chore to sit through.
Rating: 
Summary: Redux gets 4 Original gets 5
Review: Obviously, this is a great movie. I loved and was blown away by the original. I decided that if some was good, more must be better. I was wrong. Still a great movie; but not as fine as the original.
With the exception of the plantation scene - I'll get beck to that scene, all the added footage detracted from the value of the original. The added scenes were, most prominently, gratuitous and grubby T&A and sex scenes which added nothing to the movie and distracted from the flow. They are silly cul-de-sac's. Some have praised the added footage on the surfing scene and say that the surf board theft was interesting. I think it weakened the original scene. And the only reason for the surf board theft was to set up the (boring) scene of the boat hiding from Kilgore.
To me the only worthwhile added footage was the French plantation scene. It's good on several levels: it's mysterious and tough. It gives a clue about the politics of Vietnam and the war. It's beautifully shot. And, best of all, the bedroom scene is brilliantly, beautifully sexy. Unlike the other sex scenes, this one is great.
The only other good extra is the scene where Willard is in the container-thingy at Kurtz's compound and the light plays across the scene and his face. Brilliant cinematography; but it doesn't really add to the story.
It's true in almost every creative form: writing, photography, film, cooking, etc. Less is usually more. What most people need more than anything else is a good editor. Cut out the dross so the gem can shine. It's true here as well.
Here's the punchline: I lost my copy of Redux. I'll be replacing it with a copy of the (more expensive) original.
Rating:
Summary: More a work of art than just a movie.
Review: It is now more quoted than shakespeare (!!!)
Re-dux is only for the die hard fans as in its orginal
shorter form it is a much better movie!!
Leaving the extras out makes the movie
far more mysterious and memerable.
Only consider Redux after seeing it in its original form...
Rating:
Summary: Better video quaility, but added scenes wreck the story
Review: Whenever a "director's cut" edition of a movie is released, regardless of the scope or level of success the movie enjoyed originally, the first question that should automatically come to mind is "If the 'extra footage' was so important, why was it slashed in the first place?"
"Apocalypse Now" as it was originally released was an absolute masterpiece of a movie...the character development was precisely where it needed to be; Martin Sheen did a fine job of portraying a solo Special Forces operator assigned to locate and "terminate with extreme prejudice" a renegade Green Beret colonel whose "methods...have become...unsound" (yet spectacularly and embarrassingly successful). In the original theatrical version Sheen is clearly damaged goods himself; slowly losing his grip on reality as he waits in a Saigon hotel room for the release of a mission to return him to the only world in which he now feels comfortable; the jungles of Vietnam. On the way he meets an assorted array of characters with whom he interracts but never sufficiently connects, an entirely appropriate relationship given the nature of his own character and the professional nature of that character's mission.
The "Redux" version of "Apocalypse Now" instead does everything possible to humanize Sheen's character [...]particularly with his bonding more closely to the crew of the patrol boat that escorts him to his destination. What should come off as expansion of a character instead results in an uneven "ping-ponging" effort that makes Sheen's character appear almost schizophrenic as he riccochets from being "one of the boys" by stealing Robert Duvall's surfboard and liaissoning with the Playboy bunnies further up the river to being the stone-cold killer we know him to be by nearly throttling a supply sergeant and shooting a wounded teenaged Vietnamese girl in lieu of diverting his mission to take her to an aid station.
The exception, I feel, is the "French Plantation" scene. This actually gives a sense of history that the casual filmviewer unfamiliar with the history of Vietnam may find interesting. And it adds another surreal twist to a film already awash in surreality; it could not inaccurately be described as Vietnam on acid, and seeing Sheen's character taking opium as he beds a widowed French aristocrat only further adds to the aimless direction his life takes when not consumed by his mission.
My recommendation for anyone who hasn't seen either version is to watch (and stick with) the orginal 1979 version. Although the downgrading in price for the "Redux" version in comparison to the original cut does make it somewhat attractive as an impulse buy, the movie studio's initial instinct to release the film cut as it was in 1979 proves to be, in my opinion, the correct one.
Rating:
Summary: Helicopters, surf boards and brilliance.
Review: First time I watched this, the thing I liked the most was Robert Duvall's brilliant performance of surf-lover colonel Bill Kilgore. Then when I saw he was gone I was expecting his return throughout the film...never happened, but the film got pretty interesting...that's when I realized why it was called a masterpiece.
I was thrilled for what I saw and Brando hadn't even appeared yet...the helicopter attack with the Wagner classical music is one of the most beautifully filmed scenes I've seen.
Then when Marlon Brando appeared as crazed Walter E. Kurtz...what a twist for the story that started as a normal war movie with amazing helcopter attacks and turned into primitive men leadered by Marlon Brando...that was one hell of a ride.
If you want to experience 3 1/2 hours of some brilliant cinematography, great helicopter attacks, the amazing Marlon Brando with his face painted green and especially Robert Duvall giving cinema one of the coolest movie characters ever...watch this.
Rating:
Summary: Redux Just Means Dragged Out, Extra 49 Minutes...
Review: Only die-hard fans will enjoy, and notice exactly where the 49 minutes have been added. I thought the extra 49 minutes was unnecessary and just dragged out scenes (e.g camera fixed on one pointless spot for too long in an attempt to be 'arty'), so really this is a review for Apocalypse Now normal version.
Apocalypse Now is unlike other Vietnam war films, don't expect another Platoon type film based solely on the war. Apocalypse Now is simply based on the evil within a man, and the breaking point every man has. It's a deep study on the human psyche, not a study on the war itself. The film will go down as an 'art' classic, this is understandable. The vividness of direction is ahead of it's time (1979), the jungle is made to look like an oil painting at night with it's coloured flares lighting the depths of the jungle. The brief action scenes are full of bright lighting and artistic takes (some bullets fly with red trails, yellow trails, completely unrealistic but stylish). The famous bombing scene with Duvall and the helicopters is shot wounderfully, classical music booming, bright coloured flares and bizzare flourescent explosions. Capped off with the famous line of "ah, I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"
The plot is very simple, Martin Sheen must find Marlon Brando who is a highly skilled, highly intelligent man who has simply gone mad due to the war. He almost has an army that follow him in fright, every day he goes out and kills some, and leaves the carcass outside to rot. He creates his own hell. By the time Sheen finds him, he himself is fighting inside, trying his best not to succomb to the harsh environment. You sense Sheen feels for Brando, and vice versa. The film takes a deep plunge into both man's minds, and it's intiguing to say the least.
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