Rating: 
Summary: I was awe struck!!
Review: After the movie was over I was unable to move. For the first time in my 29 years of living I was awe struck by the price that was paid for the freedom that I enjoy today. My grandfather was a combat infantry soldier in WWII and he saw a tremendous amount of action much like what was in the film. This movie literally changed my relationship to my grandfather because it helped me understand where he had been and what he had seen. I did some research after the movie and discovered that my grandfather earned 5 service medals that he had never received and on Christmas eve of 98 I awarded my grandfather with all those medals. My grandfather put his face in his hands and wept. It was the first time I ever saw my grandfather cry. Had I not seen this movie I would have never been able to experience this life changing event. Everybody young and old should see this film it will change you from the inside out.
Rating:
Summary: a solemn reminder of what our grandfathers endured
Review: Saving Private Ryan is perhaps the most importand film to come out of the 90's. It is a film that reminds us that our grandfathers were once young men who were willing to die for people that they did not know. In todays society I dont many people who would do that. It is also a link between the Liberal left and the conservative right. While it is an anti-war drama, it also works to recognize that sometimes we have to do things such as that that we dont nessessarily feel comfortable in the name of doing the what is right. This film delivers a powerful message that cannot be ignored. We have freedom and democracy is spreading throughout the world, but there is a price that must be paid for it. When i first saw this movie, i prayed to God thanking him for what he has given me through the young men who died before me so that i can enjoy life as it is today.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, moving, unreal.....one of the best ever!!!
Review: If you don't love this movie you don't love movies. This epic is truely one of the masterpieces of our time. Sure it has lots of blood and gore and violence but war wasn't pretty and neither should a movie about it be. I own very few movies but this will be part of my collection.
Rating:
Summary: If you know a veteran you must see this movie.
Review: I saw this movie for the first time with my father a WWII veteran of Normandy, Falise, Ardens, Bastone and many other battles. Spielberg did such an amazing job that it left me and my father in tears. The charater he created for the old Private Ryan looks, acts and even limps like a 75 year old veteran like my dad. And while the landing scenes were memorable to most viewers, the other battle scenes were very powerful and accurate. This movie is not only good, it is valuable to our veterans. It helps us to remember that the old guy in front of us at line at Kmart may have gone through more in 10 months than we have our whole lives. See this movie if you know a battle veteran.
Rating:
Summary: Saving one life to preserve the spirit & morale of a nation
Review: With the miracle of special effects you are thrust into the heat of battle as America's young attempt the now famous landing at Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion into Normandy, France. The realism of the battle is such that you can't help but feel traumatized. What makes the impact of the landing so much more traumatic to the viewer is the knowledge that this actually happened, that young men not even old enough to vote sacrificed themselves in this horrific conflict & lost their lives so that we could continue to enjoy the freedoms of everday life. More importantly, the movie continued on to show just how fragile life was during a time of world wide conflict & how important it was to us as a nation & as individuals to preserve life, even a single life, regardless of stature, in the hope that it would maintain the spirit & morale of those at home as we pressed for victory in WWII Europe against the tyranny of the German Third Reich.
Rating: 
Summary: Ultra-realistic fight scenes undermined by formulaic plot
Review: A wonderful powerful start is diminished by the typical sentimentality that so often prevents Spielberg's more serious efforts from achieving greatness. The movie would have been so much better if they had just eliminated the subplot where they let the German soldier go only to have him turn up again at the end, etc, etc. If the soldier had not returned & the rest of the action went on with diferent Nazis fulfilling his plot point honors, or even if the one American soldier who talked the rest of the heroes into letting him go, killed the returning Nazi in a fashion more savage than anyone expected, only to be killed himself by friendly fire, anything to maintain the chaos of war image that shatters the audience at the beginning of the movie. Unfortuneately, chaos does not reign in this movie, but B-movie sentiment does, leaving Schindler's List as Spielberg's only truly successful "serious" movie. And it's a real shame, because this movie came very close to being great.
Rating: 
Summary: Melodrama in the guise of history -- manipulative.
Review: Mr. Spielberg is very good at light entertainment, but always seems to go over the top with serious topics. Here again he rubs our faces in the points he is trying to make -- flag-waving from start to finish, heavy-handed dialogue, "good guys/bad guys" plot, and a re-writing of history to make WWII a battle of freedom-loving Americans against nasty Germans.If only war was so simple. Of course many of the individual soldiers for both sides were motivated by principle. But overall the role of the U. S. in the war was no less self-serving than that of the other combattants. The U. S. only entered the war when Japan forced it to -- before December 1941, U. S. companies made fortunes selling armaments to both sides, and before that, the U. S. turned away Jewish refugees from Germany by the boatload. The Allies made no real effort to stop the Holocaust, though they were well aware of it. Given that, a little less Yankee-doodle-dandy would have been in order in this film. There were some items in the script that I found quite badly written -- Hanks exhorting Damon to "Earn this" and Ryan-the-elder saying something like "Tell me I was a good man". These lines made me groan. They also suggest the filmmaker thinks we can't figure out the significance of sacrifice without it being s-p-e-l-l-e-d o-u-t for us loud and clear. And the forced irony of having the released German POW come back to kill the man who let him go -- totally unlikely given the number of troops in the area -- was really contrived. I thought the opening battle scene was powerful but I also found it voyeuristic, as did the kids who crammed the front rows and clearly got off on the gore. Just like a murderous video game. No uneasiness, no moral unpleasantness, just "Wow, did you see that?" special effects worship, and that's disturbing. Malick and Toll in "The Thin Red Line" did a better job with the battle scenes -- chaos, carnage, the cameras (hand-held and on cranes) putting us right in the midst of it all, and quite uncomfortably so. All in all, I thought this film was more of a propaganda production than a work of art. It pretended to be historical and then distorted the history. Malick's film IS a work of art. It also made me question my beliefs, moved me out of my comfortable preconceptions, and in telling the story implied important questions without providing pat answers. I cared about the characters in "The Thin Red Line" precisely because they were so believable -- fallible, hesitant, capable of inexplicable courage and love on the one hand and cynicism and cruelty on the other. Real people. The film (TTRL) is very faithful to the novels by James Jones, who fought in Guadalcanal. His (Jones's) daughter said "Saving Private Ryan" is exactly the sort of film Jones would have hated -- it prettifies war and makes it simplistic (good guys, bad guys). Instead of characters, it gave us caricatures. "Hamburger Hill", "Full Metal Jacket" and, of course, "The Thin Red Line" are far superior. Then again, I'm a Canadian, and up here we tend to take ourselves and our mythologies with a healthy grain of salt. Eh?
Rating:
Summary: A Great Film
Review: This movie captured me from begining to end. I can't believe some viewers awarded it with one star, thats disgraceful. First off, One viewer said that we don't have too see horrors of war for ourselves. I think we do, because it shows us the bravery of those soldiers, and the sacarfice they made on D-Day. Seeing The horrors of war shows u how horrable war is and how it can destroy families. If you don't think you should see that, you don't have to watch the movie. And another viewers said it was written to win oscars. Well Duh! Why do something if you cant do it to the best of your abilities? It won oscars that means it was a great script. The special affects on Omaha Beach at Dog Green Sector are amazing!! amazing. Im glad Speilberg directed it, because i don't think any one else could have done a better job. I loved the movie so much that i am reading the book written by the consultant of the movie. Its a great book, an a great movie!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Great Achievement by Spielberg
Review: As countless others have testified before, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie for what it was, Spielberg's vision on WWII. While many of the detractors may be correct in saying that there were better war movies, the biggest achievement for Spielberg was perhaps making the general public WANT to see a war movie. What good is a film's message if few people are there to see and understand it? Regardless, Saving Private Ryan can easily stand up to Full Metal Jacket and/or any other war movie as one of the most illuminating films of this century.
Rating:
Summary: Far too sentimental about a horrible period.
Review: Devastating war scenes and some beautiful camera work couldn't make this movie worth time I spent in the theater watching it. Speilburg hit his highest point with Schindler's List (which I truly enjoyed,) but lost it with Private Ryan What would possess a man to make a touching flashback to WWII that teaches us nothing? Even during the battle scenes, he felt the need to create these structured situations within the chaos to give us a little emotional enema. Any part of this movie outside of the battle scenes was pure schlock! The same tricks he pulled in Always kept springing up. There were too many heartwarming moments and orchestral swells that are supposed to heighten the emotional level of a scene, but usually end up feeling manipulative and false (see Mr. Holland's Opus.) Maybe Speilburg was looking to do an old time American war epic, and maybe he did. But if you'd like to see a movie that takes the same subject and creates a far more realistic and moving piece, check out Thin Red Line of the same year. But that's just my opinion.
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