Rating: 
Summary: Don't watch this movie!!
Review: The acting was subpar at best and the "plot" was disconnected and random. The historical accuracy was in serious question.You are supposed to feel for certain marines when they die but you hadn't even been told thier names yet!!! Overall this movie rambles on with no real direction or purpose, the fight sceens are embarrising and the ending anti-climactic. A good idea ruined!
Rating: 
Summary: Serviceable movie
Review: 1st off I am a big John Woo fan and a Nic Cage fan. This movie was predictable and a tad boring in times. Nic Cage looked overweight and underused as the protagonist.
The plot was simple and very formulaic.
I expected much much more from Woo than this. The cinematography was that of an 80's war movie. The scenes were very clean and simplistic. We Were Soldiers was filmed much better. I found myself not caring about the rest of the movie halfway through it. I just wanted to get it over with.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than the critics say
Review: Like so many endeavors by American Indians,this was badly hurt by good intentions from the uninformed. Many critics panned it because it was too much the story of Nicolas Cage's character, and not enough about the Navajo Code Talkers. This, they seemed to assume, was taking advantage of the "poor Native Americans" who couldn't look out for themselves. They also criticized the many war movie cliches. However, if critics had taken the time to read American Indian publications prior to the movie's release, they would have realized that most American Indian groups were pleased with the movie, taking the much more pragmatic approach that this was a step toward mainstream appreciation of Native American themes and actors, that couldn't be acheived without a big name star and a popular genre. I would agree, that for my purposes, there was too much about the Cage character, but how many other folks would go to see Adam Beach and Roger Willy playing Navajo Code Talkers. As to being cliche, sure it was, in parts, but if you squeamishly skipped over the first scenes of "Private Ryan," as I did, you'd notice that that movie had a lot of cliches too. I think the Native American themes and actors were as much a redeeming factor for this movie as the beach landing was for Private Ryan. As for the details, Nicolas Cage did what he's been doing a lot of lately. He walked through his part. To his credit,he probably realizes that his role is simply to get people in to see movies they would normally ignore, It's a shame it didn't work here. Adam Beach is a creditable actor (though I thought he was better in Smoke Signals) and has a smile to die for. With a little more exposure this guy could be another Tom Cruise. By far the best job, though, was done by Roger Willie, a fellow who never acted before, and went to the auditions on a whim, at the suggestion of his sister-in-law. Willy brings a natural quality to the role that I hope leads to bigger and better parts in the future The movie does move a little too fast over what I thought were the more interesting issues, like what motivated these two characters to volunteer. I would have liked a little more of their home life and also some more detailed scenes of their training. A WWII movie without cliches is like a Western without horses and guns, but I thought the Native American themes of ceremonial healing and the warrior past, along with some good acting by the American Indian actors, made this worth seeing. And if more people had gone to see this "hybrid" of Native American and classic WWII themes, it might have opened a door for more popular acceptence of American Indian actors and movies.
Rating:
Summary: Strong On Action
Review: This movie attempts to tell the story of the Navajo code talkers during World War II. An outstanding idea but I feel the movie falls short of giving the subject proper treatment. It is a war movie, straight forward action movie. It portrays close contact fighting and the horrors of war. It is full of action but unfortunately the action only carries it so far, to a 3 star rating. I would have enjoyed a little more, something, to keep me interested since I was expecting a little more of the code talker story and less of a battle film. I can only watch straight ahead war scenes for a certain amount of time without some interluding story as well. But if you like war scenes this movie excells. It shows the waste and the fear of men in battle as well as the bravery and bonds that are formed.
Rating:
Summary: War What Is It Good For
Review: I was looking forward to this movie's release.
That is, back last year right before it was postponed by eight months for some reason or another. But this summer, when I saw Windtalkers I had already been through 'Behind Enemy Lines',
'Black Hawk Down' and 'We Were Soldiers'.
Did I really want to see ANOTHER war movie?
Of course, if it was directed by John Woo who proved his great action flair with the action hits Face/Off and Mission Impossible 2. So I went to see this as any John Woo fan would, and suffice it to say, I was quite dissapointed. I could hardly tell that 'Windtalkers' was directed by Woo, except for one quick scene that featured two soldiers face to face with their guns out and pointed to each other, ala Face/Off's famous Travolta/Cage scene.
But I mean really, you don't see any of the director's trademark doves, and believe me, even in a battlefield he could have found a way to work them into the movie. The story itself is a flimsy little adaption of something that occurred during World War 2 involving Navajo Indians who were code talkers, but I'm sure you've heard all about that. Nicholas Cage portrays Joe Enders,
an american soldier who has a problem with his hearing and after seeing one too many battles is emotionaly fried.
This gives Cage the chance to play his usual character as of late,
that of a hopeless man who thanks to someone, in this case his codetalker (Adam Beach), discovers what life is again.
The acting is sub-par with the best work coming from Adam Beach, but that isn't saying a whole lot. After a while in the movie each explosion, each death or gory image, became less and less startling, until eventually you'd expect a bomb blast and limbs flying and it just doesn't mean that much anymore.
The ending itself is predictable since you know from the commercial how it's going to end and who is going to ultimately die protecting his codetalker.
After considering the hell that these guys went through I can't help but feel that they deserve a much better movie, but hollywood, please, no more war movies for at least a year or so.
Or they will all just become repeative, and who would that be good for?
Rating: 
Summary: A True Masterpiece
Review: I just bought "Windtalker" and I think it is one of the best war movies to come out of Hollywood. I love war movies and my personal favoret is "Platoon" with Charlie Sheen and William Daefoe but "Windtalkers" is up there with it. Cage is one of the best actors to date and deservese a award of some type for his performance. Marines should love this movie. SEMPER FI.
Rating:
Summary: Woo-Lite, TNT-Heavy, Features-Nada
Review: John Woo knows action. Just check his directorial resume to find some of the most explosively imaginative films to hit American theaters. John Woo struggles a bit with emotions that don't culminate in a roundhouse punch or bazooka blast. While "Windtalkers" has plenty of each, the heart of the story holds a good deal of untapped drama that would have vaulted this film from good to fantastic. A recent WWII-era of note, "Saving Private Ryan", had some grimly realistic (and let's face it, eye-popping) battle scenes, but what really drew the audience in was the humanity of the small troop accomplishing something heroic. In contrast, "Windtalkers" somehow misses the mark of making the audience walk a mile in its characters' shoes. The well casted crew creates an adequate atmosphere, but the script kept them more-or-less in caricature-mode. With his keen facial inflections, Nicolas Cage imbues depth to a rather flatly written part, but again, he wasn't given much to work with. The battle scenes are impressive, but after the third Rambo-esque shoot-em-up session (one man, one machine-gun, lots of dead bad-guys), you might start to think, "I've seen this before." John Woo didn't seem to tap his full creative "action" reserve here, even during the armed conflicts. Many fans have grown to hold pretty high expectations for Mr. Woo, and until now, he's always delivered above-and-beyond. In the case of "Windtalkers" action sequences, the word "adequate" comes mind. After the film was finished, I felt only partially satisfied. While the movie is entertaining, the code talkers are ultimately peripheral players in the Cage character's struggle. I wasn't hoping for a documentary on Navajo Code Talkers, but more focus on them in a movie about them would have been more fulfilling. Note on the DVD: the "extras" on my version are nearly nonexistent. They include two trailers for "Windtalkers", a trailer for another film, and text credits for the DVD production crew. For a historically based film, the least they could have added was a short PBS-esque documentary on actual code talkers. Something... Anything would have been nice.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like war movies AVOID this one
Review: If you like war movies this is one not to get. The acting [...] to say the least. Explosions occur before the planes bomb actually hit the ground soldiers die before the bullets hit them or the bomb explodes. The planes, all digital, shrink as the flyby at times they get smaller than the actors. This has nothing to do with distance or any other factor besides poor art direction. Nicholas Cage should be ashamed of this movie for sometime. The story of the windtakers should be given more respect than what this movie trys to give it.
Rating:
Summary: An embarassment
Review: This is the worst war movie I have ever seen. The combat scenes are dull, uninteresting, and can't hold a candle to the combat scenes in films like Saving Private Ryan or We Were Soldiers. The musical score is obtrusive and distracting, especially during the battle scenes where it is an utter cliche. Why didn't they make an honest and historically accurate film about the windtalkers? This is poor fiction to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: Windtalker is a Windbreaker
Review: The weakness of the storyline and plot is surpassed only by the really bad acting of Nicholas Cage. This man is truly the luckiest person in Hollywood. He lacks talent. He lacks good looks. And he lacks charisma. He is capable of only two expressions, and both of them resemble a constipated hound dog. If he were not Coppola's nephew, he would be delivering Domino Pizzas. If it's possible, his performance in this movie is even worse than that in Captain Corelli's whatever. And Cage manages to do this without affecting a Dracula-like phony Italian accent. This movie is not worth even the modest rental charge. Windtalkers breaks wind.
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