Windtalkers

Rating:
Summary: A LITTLE TO MUCH HOLLYWOOD
Review: The only problem I had with this movie was the calling in for fire support.I have a hard time believing that artillery support in WWII would hit the target every time on the first round. Maybe once in the whole war you might call the coordinates so perfectly, but not every single time, not unless John Wayne was calling in the fire support. A little to much hollywood there. Other than that the movie was worth the ticket.

Rating:
Summary: It's the best new battle film since Black Hawk Down.
Review: WINDTALKERS is yet another top quality film in an already saturated war film market. It contains all the elements any successful war movie needs. First off, the action sequences are top notch. Everything from the hand to hand combat, to the fly-by bombing raids, is displayed brilliantly. The storyline that pushes the film forward is one you care about, which adds the much needed emotional level. Many films with their base in action leave this element on the sideline.
Nicolas Cage in this movie gives perhaps the most controlled and soulful performance of his career as a shell-shocked warrior who no longer seems to fear death and who no longer is able to form emotional attachments.
John Woo makes Windtalkers his own by combining the style and concerns of his earlier work with retro-sounding music and other war-movie conventions.
WINDTALKERS is a quality piece of cinema. It has action, suspense, and real emotions. Cage and Beach are both solid in their leading roles, and their supporting cast is there to brace them at every turn. If you like drama and movies that make you think, then WINDTALKERS is a perfect fit for you.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible Film.
Review: This movie is full of cliches, bad acting, and gratuitous, stupid violence. Nicholas Cage becomes the consummate overactor as he unsuccessfully attempts to portray conflicted emotions. He looks like Bill Shatner's Kirk transplanted into the 1940's Pacific theatre. It's pathetic and John Woo seems to think that he can cover it up with explosions. Every five minutes my wife and I would look at each other and say, "There hasn't been an explosion for a while," and at that point Woo would indulge us with some more unnecessary pyrotechnics. The explosions become boring due to the fact that they seem to occur in mind-numbingly large groups. Eventually you'll conclude that they're just there to wake you up from the coma that you've fallen into as your brain punishes you for watching this film.

But ultimately, the explosions aren't able to distract from the horrible war-movie dialog. One guy actually gives his wedding ring to a buddy with the request that it be given to his wife because he has a premonition of dying. The buddy, of course, gives it back and says, "No man, you're gonna live." Guess who dies in the next scene. Ditto with the infantryman carrying the flame thrower who says, "I'm wearing a Zippo lighter on my back!" There were many others, but my mind has prevailed in deleting them from memory. Thank goodness.

No, wait! I almost forgot! The Japanese soldiers! Their attack method is to run at you until you shoot them dead! Will they fire at you? Who cares? Their aim is worse than any Star Wars Storm Trooper! It turns out that our fighting men didn't do such a mighty thing defeating the Japanese Empire because none of their soldiers could kill you. Thanks for that insight, John Woo!

Rating:
Summary: John Wayne movie with good Indians, er, Navajos
Review: This long movie is well worth the money. If you went to the toilet during one of the few dialogue bits, you would have missed out on the profound themes. These profound themes would have been interrupted by senseless pyrotechnics by the time you got out of the loo.

Wherever John Wayne pointed his gun, an Indian falls. Same here. Wherever John Woo points his camera, battle hardened Japanese seem to fall like flies. Sergeant Nicolas Cage shoots up [Japanese] by the dozens, not just any [Japanese], but battle hardened [Japanese] dug in on Saipan. When Sgt Cage fires into the air the Japanese catch his bullets. Sgt Cage also manages to get a Japanese sniper atop a coconut tree - with his tommy-gun pointed horizontally. No he never misses a Japanese. The only homage to reality is the number of times the Marines run low on ammo, a reality rarely shown in other war movies.

Yes, both Sgt Cage and his Windtalker were both educated as Catholics. The racial stereotyping is not confined to Navajos. The hyperventilating Greeks get it. Captain Corelli gets an Italian sized dose. The Japanese get it. Only the Chinese who were not in the movie were spared. There were other themes, like battle fatigue, family, childhood as 8 year olds, unfair distribution of credit for valour and so on. All truncated by gratuitous action sequences and oversized secondary explosions.

The theme which really got to me and kept me going throughout the film is Sgt Cage's agenda. His orders were to protect the Navajo code at all cost. Which means that he has to frag his Indian instead of allowing him to fall into enemy hands. One Navaho got the idea near the end of the movie. There was something wrong about a cowboy watching an Indian's back, he says. There is something really eerie about this. After all that bonding, the white man was supposed to waste the Indian he was baby-sitting. Nicolas Cage snaps and asks to be re-assigned. He was refused and had to go along to take that high ridge in Saipan.

When surrounded by [Japanese], he is confronted with the problem of wasting his Windtalker. See the movie yourself. How this semi-predictable dilemma is played out in the end is worth waiting for. It is only half predictable. Find out the other half.

Rating:
Summary: Worst WW11 movie ever made!
Review: I love world war 2 movies and this one is by far the worst. I really wanted to see this movie when it first came out, but then after i saw it i almost died. Trust me, if you have never seen this movie dont see it. Dont waste your time watching this. IF you want to buy a good world war 2 movie then wait and buy the band of brothers set. It is much better.

Rating:
Summary: Great Story, Good actors........bad directing
Review: I found this particular movie much of the same old genra of most WWII movies. Nick Cage is a fantastic actor and I enjoyed most of the characters. However; the story and most of the scenes were no where near the realism of Private Ryan. As one of your coined " the private Ryan of the Pacific" I found incredibly inaccurate. Plus if you pay attention you will notice much of the combat scenes take place in a desert setting. The battle for Saipan actually was more of a jungle setting somewhat like Guam or Okinawa. As usual Hollywood should pay more attention to accuracy then they do. Many in the audience saw this and it certainly hurt the realism and effected the story as well.

Rating:
Summary: The essence of war
Review: Certainly I went into the theatre with very little hope that this would rise above one or two stars. I have NEVER been a Nicholas Cage fan and the fact of the matter is that I forgot, during this movie, that I was watching Nocholas Cage. Clearly this actor put his heart into the movie after the horrible Captain Correli's Mandalin. The actors playing the Native Americans rose well above par and should be thanked for such heartfelt performances.
Plainly the script should have been re-written and added more deeply the importance of the Navajo and their language during the war. That said, this movie still rose above unexpected above the rail. John Woo's realistic battle scenes were fabulously created with riveting gore that DOES not go to far.
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Rating:
Summary: More appropriate title Bloodletters not Windtalkers
Review: The production of this film was expensive and the talent competent to say the least. The trouble was that while the purported subject of Native American code talkers is wildly fascinating, the actual subject of the movie was extensive, profane, ceaseless blood and gore. As a Native American I am deeply disappointed, as an American Citizen I deplore the shallow perspective and as a human being I regret the time spent in watching this bloody depiction under misleading banner.

Rating:
Summary: Reviewers want political correctness
Review: This was a terrific war movie with very realistic battle scenes and a strong plot on the dysfunctional life of a soldier who blamed himself for the death's of his squad.

I don't understand the bashing it has taken from the critics. It seems that because the writers and producers wanted to deal with subject matter that included minorities in a substancial role they opened themselves to the cultural police. Had the title been "Enders War" I wonder if there would have been so much fuss about the lack of focus on the code talkers themselves?

I know that there were some minor technical errors in the film but I have NEVER seen a war movie with zero errors. I found that the movie moved quickly thus keeping my attention but unfortunatly it did skip over several opportunities for more in depth character development. I believe that there is only so much time a person will sit and watch a movie and the makers of the movie took this into consideration. Overall I found this film to be an outstanding war movie along the lines of "BAND OF BROTHERS" though it did not tug on the emotions like "Saving Pvt. Ryan" or "We Were Soldiers"

Rating:
Summary: Watch The Cliches Fly!!!
Review: Take every bullet ever fired in all of John Woo's action films and add them together. You should have a rough estimate of how many mind-numbing Hollywood cliches there are in this mess.

I've never been much of a Nicolas Cage fan...he always acts like, well, Nicolas Cage, with the only difference from one film to another being his surroundings.
I am, however, a John Woo fan. He actually made Cage watchable in the adrenaline-rush that was Face/Off, and his early film The Killer is still one of the greatest action-dramas ever made. All the more reason to be let down by this spectacle of selling out.

I won't bore you with the plot, just take pieces of every war movie cliche and Native American stereotype, put them together in one film and you pretty much have it.
The only redeeming parts of this film (which would be expected from Woo) were the unflinching scenes of combat and slight exploration of realistic dilemmas a soldier might face (such as one American platoon accidentally firing on another). These provided the only really involving and effective moments of the entire film.

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