Rating: 
Summary: War is hell
Review: This movie was unique in the way it showed the Vietnam war. It showed our army was not a bunch of drugged up former criminals but in fact a very well trained fighting machine. Mel Gibson shines again with another flawless performance. The only so so parts of the movie were of the young Lieutenant he is played by someone with no acting ability what so ever I have only seen him in teen movies such as American pie and I think he must just be slow same dumb look in all his films.With that said the film was great.
Rating: 
Summary: Pure garbage.
Review: I would have never thought that I'd one day laugh hysterically at a war-genre movie. Then I saw "We Were Soldiers." With all honesty, this could have passed for a comedy in my mind. "We Were Soldiers" is one of the most ridiculous war movies I've seen in recent years, with a story that is embarrasingly hysterical. Mel Gibson did his best to try and save the film, but it ended up sinking faster than the Titanic. The films weakest point was the story of Gibson's wife, Julie Moore (Madeleine Stowe;) it's where the film gets the most laughs, for me at least. "We Were Soldiers" is easily one of the worst films of 2002, and will most likely remain on my list of the Worst Films of the Year permenantly. What a horrible movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Really 4.5 Stars
Review: I believe that this is one of the all-time best movies about the Vietnam War. I read the book after I saw the movie and the movie did a pretty good job of following the book (although the movie did add in more of the story about the families). The only thing that bothered me about this movie was the ending. I think that there should have been either a commentary or a little paragraph at the end explaining that after LZ X-Ray there was trouble at LZ Albany and maybe even a list of those that died in that Ia Drang battle. But otherwise a truly touching story on the Vietnam War.
Rating:
Summary: Good Historical Content, little to much Ceative License
Review: Very good depection of Vietnam, even with the created sub-story line.BUT a Very Good movie.
Having read almost all books on Vietnam I would say this might be the closed to reality. Hamburger Hill is another great Vietnam movie. With alot of actors that went on the be very good in later films. Watch it when you can.
Rating:
Summary: Been there & Done That
Review: Envision, if you will, a landing zone about the size of a football field. Think of Grass & Brush so thick when you go prone your world becomes the 12 inches you can see. This is the real thing!!Lived and served with the survivors of this and the related battles at Ira Drang. Col Moore is the "Man" and the 'Troopers" All American. Missed comments and inclusion of "Hard Core" Hero Rick Rescola who ended up with the Bugle and saved lives at Ira Drang and in New York on 9-11-01. Hollywood note: "Bullets when they hit go in with little if any marks but coming out leave horrible wounds. When you see the film and the erupting impact of bullets just realize they may not be hitting from the front and you will feel accruacy in the film. If you haven't seen this film, get the book, Read the book and taste the truth, then watch the film knowing it is as true as Hollywood can make it yet does not tell it all. Garry Owen!!
Rating:
Summary: outstanding
Review: this movie does and excellent job on conveying the same concepts desired by the authors. it took galloway and moore many years to tell this incredible story in the appropriate way- and at the appropriate time. randall wallace does a good job of sticking to their themes and tells a story of brave men fighing one of the most incredible battles in us military history which had largely gone unnoticed and unappreciated.it's time for america to see this war from the perspective of the heroes who fought it./
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Well Done Movie
Review: The bottom line here is simple: This movie is extremely well done, and Mel Gibson (along with the majority of the other actors) does an incredible acting job. This is one of the most realistic portrayals of warfare on a battlefield-level that I have seen in a while. Most of this movie is the brutal neverending Ia Drang Valley battle between American and Vietnamese forces. With bullets whizzing, soldiers screaming, and choppers flying overhead you feel as if the only thing missing is the smell of the gunpowder. However, when the movie switches to show the families back home and their lives, it is capable of exceptionally emotional and very touching moments. The transition between such scenes is very well done. You don't find yourself watching an adrenaline-pumping scene and suddenly switch over to a scene of a sobbing wife. Instead, it naturally takes you through the peaks and lulls of emotion and you never find yourself being taken off-guard. The end result is an excellent movie that has definite replay value. I plan on adding it to my personal collection.
Rating:
Summary: INCREDIBLE
Review: This was one of the best (if not definatly the best) war based movie I have ever seen. It was just amazing, great visual effects, and exellent story, the only part that was slighty annoying was the part with the wives, but it made the story even better. I being a huge fan of true war movies (Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot, Braveheart, Black Hawk Down) believe this should be another movie added to your collection.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: Being a guy who loves action movies, the parts showing the wifes were a slight setback, but I didn't mind watching them because it all fell into the story great. I also love movies that are heroic or inspiring (Braveheart, The Patriot, Saving Private Ryan), and this is another movie that I thought did the same. It looked great also just overall, and was just stunning. I am not in the army, I don't know much about vietnam, but after I saw that movie I just felt so connected to it (although Hollywood changed some of the parts comparing to the book). This movie is really only good for action and parts of drama. But the history behind it, and the feeling I had that people actually did this made me appreciate this movie so much more.
Rating: 
Summary: War movie of the bad old type
Review: Briefly, this movie is poorly conceived on a number of levels. First, contrary to certain reviews, this movie IS about the politics as well as the tactical and operational realities of the Vietnam War, and any reviewer who tries to separate the two should check out Clausewitz's On War. More to the point, it is (mostly) a whitewash of the terrible futility of the sacrifices that so many Vietnam veterans made due to the political incompetence of our government, while simultaneously a reversion to the old Hollywood tendency to glorify the way war and infantry combat are depicted. Second, it is almost entirely cliche; there is not an original line or character in the movie. Third, it is somewhat misleading about the historical facts of the battle for the Ia Drang Valley. First, the movie does get involved in the politics of the war. It does a fair job of portraying the innocence of American soldiers before they were deployed, and it has an excellent (but brief) portrayal of the political sensitivity to casualties and the degree to which the war was micromanaged. However, the movie almost completely sidesteps the fact that the Vietnam War was a war without a purpose. The soldiers in the Air Cavalry, and for that matter every other unit in Vietnam, fought and died for no clearly-defined purpose, and as such their heroic sacrifices were as futile as any in the history of war. The only hint of this in the movie is a single line at the end of the film by the North Vietnamese Army commander (which I shall omit for the benefit of those who haven't seen the movie). The rest of the movie ignores the futility of the sacrifices made by the Americans, and while this may help us to appreciate the heroism of the individual soldiers on that day, it insulates us to the incompetence and dereliction of duty of which the political leadership was guilty. On a less esoteric level, the movie tends to depict infantry combat in an overly-sanitized manner. I am an infantry combat veteran of the Gulf War and served in the 101st Air Assault Division. The movie does almost nothing to accurately depict the effects that modern arms, particularly artillery, has on soldiers' bodies. Furthermore, the movie gives the impression that soldiers under fire continue to execute their missions with stoicism and professionalism. This is simply untrue. Even in the American military of today, which is far more professional than it has ever been, the majority of infantry soldiers become ineffective and cannot pursue their objectives or engage the enemy after more than a few minutes of exposure to fire similar to that depicted in the movie. The movie did not show that. For a far more realistic depiction of infantry combat, see Saving Private Ryan. The movie was also somewhat historically inaccurate. The movie gives the viewer the impression that the entire battle of the Ia Drang Valley occurred in the vicinity of Landing Zone X-Ray. As to the events that occurred in LZ X-Ray, the movie is accurate in a chronological sense. The deployment of units, the geographical features, and the order of battle was done fairly well. However, there were several other landing zones and several other battalions fron the Air Cav that were not shown. In fact, at one point in the movie a map seems to indicate that the only active landing zone in the entire area was LZ X-Ray. Finally, the entire script could have been taken directly from a 1960s-era John Wayne war movie. I do not recall a single original or believable line from the entire movie. The characters were all idealized and one-dimensional, and the direction tended to glamorize the action. [WARNING - spoiler coming] As an example, it has one of the oldest cliches of war movies: it introduces a young, idealistic soldier to the audience and acquaints the audience with the soldier's wife and new baby, only to kill the soldier later in the movie. This has been a part of just about every bad war movie (and, I admit, some good ones - see Platoon) since war movies have been made. As soon as I was introduced to the young soldier and learned of his new baby, I knew that he would get it later on. Indeed, he was killed in one of the other great cliches of war movies - trying to drag one of his wounded soldiers back to cover under fire. [OKAY - spoiler over] In short, my opinion is that this movie was a retread of the bad old days of war movies that glorified war and whitewashed both the realities of combat and the politics of Vietnam in particular. I wish to reiterate that I do NOT seek to disparage the individual American soldiers who served in Vietnam to any degree - no one will deny the heroism and sacrifice of them, particularly in the face of their government's betrayal. Rather, I think that the realities of the Vietnam War, and of war in general, were glorified and oversimlified in the movie, and I cannot recommend it. Rather, I recommend Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line for good war movies in general, and Platoon and Apocalypse Now for the Vietnam War in particular.
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