Rating: 
Summary: an excellent dvd
Review: "Catch-22" is a beautifully designed, shot and executed movie that, in the end, doesn't really work. However, it's too elaborately staged and too ambitious to be considered a "bad" movie. And the extra features that accompany the DVD help the film transcend a "thumbs up/thumbs down" rating.First and foremost, it looks amazing. I loved this film when I initially saw it on tape in 1990, but it was only recently that I was able to see it in a widescreen format -- letterboxing reveals what a brutal disservice pan-and-scan does to the compositions of "Catch's" 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If you've only seen this movie in fullscreen, you haven't really seen this movie. The transfer is also incredible. I'm so used to seeing the grainy print of my VHS copy that I hadn't realized how great a lot of the cinematography is. The use of front-projection during the air-combat scenes is astonishing and the detail and color really surprised me. But the main reason to get this DVD is the commentary. Director Mike Nichols is joined by Steven Soderbergh to talk about "Catch-22" and through their discussion, one really gets a sense of how Nichols (who had just directed back-to-back hits with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "The Graduate") took on this project with the best intentions and inspiration... and quickly got swallowed up by the massive project and even bigger budget. Soderbergh is, in my opinion, one of the best directors doing commentary these days (he gives a perfect mix of technical details and storytelling) and he really knows his "Catch-22" ---though I find it a little incredible that he never noticed the changing portraits in Major Major's office, as he claims while watching the scene. This movie is a great mix of Fellini, Laugh-In, Welles and Salvador Dali. Some may feel there's not enough Joseph Heller here but it would take a mini-series to cover all the bases of such a deep, rich novel. At times, this movie can try your patience (like most Catch-22's often do) but it's definitely worth seeing and hearing in this new format.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent dvd
Review: "Catch-22" is a beautifully designed, shot and executed movie that, in the end, doesn't really work. However, it's too elaborately staged and too ambitious to be considered a "bad" movie. And the extra features that accompany the DVD help the film transcend a "thumbs up/thumbs down" rating. First and foremost, it looks amazing. I loved this film when I initially saw it on tape in 1990, but it was only recently that I was able to see it in a widescreen format -- letterboxing reveals what a brutal disservice pan-and-scan does to the compositions of "Catch's" 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If you've only seen this movie in fullscreen, you haven't really seen this movie. The transfer is also incredible. I'm so used to seeing the grainy print of my VHS copy that I hadn't realized how great a lot of the cinematography is. The use of front-projection during the air-combat scenes is astonishing and the detail and color really surprised me. But the main reason to get this DVD is the commentary. Director Mike Nichols is joined by Steven Soderbergh to talk about "Catch-22" and through their discussion, one really gets a sense of how Nichols (who had just directed back-to-back hits with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "The Graduate") took on this project with the best intentions and inspiration... and quickly got swallowed up by the massive project and even bigger budget. Soderbergh is, in my opinion, one of the best directors doing commentary these days (he gives a perfect mix of technical details and storytelling) and he really knows his "Catch-22" ---though I find it a little incredible that he never noticed the changing portraits in Major Major's office, as he claims while watching the scene. This movie is a great mix of Fellini, Laugh-In, Welles and Salvador Dali. Some may feel there's not enough Joseph Heller here but it would take a mini-series to cover all the bases of such a deep, rich novel. At times, this movie can try your patience (like most Catch-22's often do) but it's definitely worth seeing and hearing in this new format.
Rating:
Summary: This has been my all-time favorite movie since it came out
Review: ...and this DVD is the best version of it that I've ever seen (including at theaters).
This movie had been cut up something awful over the years, and for a long time the only version you could find on VHS was one of the later (and worst) TV edits. This DVD was made from a beatiful original (print? negative? not sure) by, of all people, Steven Soderberg (who stays for the commentary track), and the sound and color are wonderful.
Mike Nichols has claimed that he isn't happy with how this movie turned out, but then I haven't liked a whole lot of what he's made since, so that sorta' figures.
Rating: 
Summary: A Man Fed Dog Food Every Day in his Life Can One Day....
Review: ...be given filet mignon and feel it is a insult to his palet.
Another Batman movie is being made. Watch how many folks complain how wrong the filmakers got it and how it is crap because it doesn't fit their idea of the Batman mystique acquired from their readings, nay, studying of the comic books.
What does this have to do with the movie Catch 22?
There are too many critics here who didn't like this Mike Nichols rendition of Joseph Heller's war novel Catch 22. I say Frog Them and see for yourself what's up with this rendering (another view) of the war story. I however read the book and saw the movie and thought the movie to be just fine. No, better than fine. The movie captures the story and the mood of the novel superbly.
Yossarian (played by Alan Arkin) famously discovers that part of the enemies in war are not only the ones you bomb and shoot, but the ones who are said to be *on your side*... but have either 1) a jackbooted mentality towards military protocol or 2) so corrupted by taking advantage of the loopholes in the protocol that they are criminal....Yossarian tries to get a psychological deferment to not fly the bombers any more and try to get home...he wants the powers that be think he's nuts so he would not be further exposed to the inanity and insanity of war, but of course gets confronted with the 'damn if you do fly and damn if you don't fly' orders from the military protocolists...if Yossarian knows its flying in another mission which makes him nuts, he can't possibly be nuts, so he must fly in another mission...
Striking in the book as well as the movie are the scenes where: Yossarian discovers his gunner has been riddled with artillary fire, a soldier gets destroyed by the propellers of a low flying aircraft and all the soldiers various madnesses with the ladies of the red light district...as well as how the military supplier becomes as fascistic as the enemy.
It is a good movie that I feel didn't get it's due because it went against the grain of most war stories being told. It poked a little fun at the ridiculousness of war and of men in war...it has a 60's draft card burning, hippie protest feel about it. We expect the boys to be proudly willing to do their fighting for our country. But we really don't know how crazy going to war is unless we've gone fighting for our country. You should find this one and look at it...
Rating:
Summary: I Didn't Even Watch the Movie!
Review: 1. Any movie made after a classic book is never as good as the book.
2. If a book is made into a movie, the book must have been a classic.
3. If the movie is better than the book, and the book is not regarded as a classic, the movie must have really been based on something else.
(Just a few simple rules I've come by for comparing books to movies)
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite
Review: A marginal adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22 is noisy, confusing, and over-cooked. If you haven't read the book, the narrative will be difficult to follow, I believe, because there is not enough development to motivate what happens in the plot. So, we don't really understand why Nately's whore goes crazy, and we have no idea what her sister is doing there. At best, this film serves only as a partial visualization of the book for those that have read it, or a surreal comedy lacking any humor for those who have not. In the movie, Milo's megalomania is just wierd, Dobbs is a nobody, Nately's whore is nice to him, Hungary Joe only appears for his death scene (as far as I can remember), and the "missing" doctor gag is started but goes nowhere. It seems the filmmakers wanted to include as many classic bits from the book as possible, but weren't able to make any sense out of any of them. Maybe they are not to blaim completely; I cannot imagine how the book could be properly done in two hours. In any case, much more would need to be cut so that the main strands of the novels could be developed further.
Rating: 
Summary: Read the book!
Review: Alan Arkin was pretty good as Yosarian, but it just didn't make me laugh. More of an amused smile sort of movie.
I know it's been said before, but this time it's true;
The book was funnier.
Rating:
Summary: The Insanity of war, the insanity of Catch 22
Review: An offbeat, unconventional, searing account of the madness of war. Hilarious and moving, but just weird enough to turn some viewers off. Still, there are some gems in this film! And remember Yossarians advice: "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you!"
Rating:
Summary: Not the Catch-22 That a True Fan Would Expect
Review: As most of the other reviews have stated, this movie is not really the novel, nor could it be. As with any major literary work, there must be sacrifices for translation to cinema. Thus the movie stands alone as a work in its own right. Things that are fantastic about the movie: the casting of Alan Arkin as Yossarian; the texture and color of the cinematography, expertly communicating much of the feel one gets from reading the novel. Best in the movie: the scene of Snowden spilling his guts. It communicates without dialog the horror, the fear, the stark truth of life and death, as the engines drone deafeningly in Yossarian's ears, drowning out even his own screams. Worst in the movie: the ommission of so many brilliant characters and scenes. No, it's not the novel, but it's an interesting take, Mike Nichols' excellent adaptation of a very difficult subject.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie!
Review: As somebody that did not read the book, I love the movie. A war movie that deals with the human issue of being stuck fighting in a war.
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