Saving Private Ryan

Rating:
Summary: the most powerful movie I have ever seen
Review: Both my father and father in law fought in WWII, in the pacific with a combat engineering company and as a landing craft coxswain during D-day respectively. I have spoken to them both about the film, they each said that although nothing could truely reprodure the horrors of war this film has come the closest. It is a shame that Saving Private Ryan did not win the Oscar for best picture thst time will prove it truely should have, if for no other reason that as a small token of the unpayable debt we all own those men who fought in the war especially those who never returned.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best films ever...
Review: The DVD version of Saving Private Ryan is extraordinary. The picture quality and sound quality just blew me out of the water. Tom Hanks played one his best roles in this movie. This movie does a wonderful job of showing the real horrors of war and how it affects real people. War is by no means wonderful, but this movie is.

Rating:
Summary: I remember the first time...
Review: ...I saw this movie. I was at the movie theater with two of my good friends, and we decided to watch this movie only because our first choice had been sold out. (I can no longer remember what that first choice was)

I was expecting a typical Hollywood war movie, with lots of American derring-do, and protrayal of the enemy as faceless, evil cowards who kill the lovable, American boys by shooting them in the back, ala John Wayne's "The Sands of Iwo Jima."

But as soon as that ramp on the landing craft went down, I knew this movie was something altogether different. I had never in my life been as shocked and numbed as I was in those first few moments as we witnessed - close up - the effects of machine gun bullets on human flesh.

The terrible cacophony of machine guns, exploding artillery, screaming men, and flying body parts was so realistic, my heart didn't stop pounding in my chest for maybe a half-hour after the beach scene was over! And I am a huge war movie buff! The battle scenes in such movies as "Glory", "Braveheart", "Full Metal Jacket", et al, have nothing on this movie. A real classic.

And to all those who were offended by the "too graphic" depiction of war - Puhleeze. War is ugly. War is death - often by extremely painful means. And even to those that survive, war often results in mutilation, or the loss of a limb.

This movie should be required viewing for all middle-aged politicians who would send our nation's youth to fight for their own egos and diplomatic failures.

Rating:
Summary: NOT A REALISTIC LOOK AT WW II...
Review: It seems to me that to many people forgot that a significant number of african-american men died defending this country in WW II also. Trying to give this movie the benefit of the doubt, I saw the movie twice. Coming to the sad realization that there wasn't one, not one african-american face in this movie. Not dead, alive or wounded. This cannot be an accident. Why is it so hard to give credit where credit is due. The year 2000 is here, and this kind of thing shouldn't still be happening....The only reason I didn't rate this movie a zero is because of Barry Pepper's portral of Pvt. Jackson. I've seen him in other film, and He's a very good and likable actor. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work. E. McKee

Rating:
Summary: I was saddened to see our brave men dying GRUSOME!
Review: In that time of war,I see many men died because of a lack of preperation, men were dieing before the battle even began. Some-one should have combed the beaches with planes before sending the men into battle. That was a total masaca! I am devastated to know that nothing was really done about the situation until it was way to late. "WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF LIFE"! "TOTAL IGNORANCE"!

Rating:
Summary: Can't be any more real.
Review: First thing's first: This is absolutely, without a doubt the most heartfelt, gut-wrenching, emotionally rocking movie about WWII ever made.

Not only did it finally show what the landing at Normandy was like, but it also depicted what urban warfare is like. I still can't get over the lighting, the shadows and, of course, the combat effects.

Most of all, I'm glad what Speilberg emphasized in this movie:

There are NO rapid fire trails going PING-PING-PING in neat, straight lines.

Machinegun fire, even if your holding your weapon steady, makes contact over quite a large area.

Bullets DO make that horrible shrieking, whining sound, along with the sharp whizzing noises too.

The MK2(pineapple) grenade doesn't creating billowing walls of fire like so many other hollywood grenades do. It explodes and sends invisible shrapnel and a lot of dirt and dust in the air.

The actors weren't actors in this movie-- they were soldiers. Tom Hanks is the perfect draftee Captain: educated, 30-ish, and brutal/compassionate at the same time. Draftee officers DID come from no-name towns and did have jobs like being a schoolteacher.

The movie actually showed military tactics the way they are used, from simple fire-and-maneuver to interlocking fields of machinegun fire.

And finally, one of the most memorable scenes for me is when the sound fades away from Captain Miller at the Normandy landing. That's adrenaline for ya. So much of it in your system will drown out sound, drain color from your vision, and also make things seem to go into slow-motion because your mind is taking about 20 times as many pictures as normal in any given second.

For those who gave this movie bad reviews:

What the hell more do you want? This movie shows WHAT WARFARE IS LIKE, something that over the past fifty or so years no one has been able to achieve through countless war flicks. If you like those cheap celebrity fests like The Longest Day or The Thin Red Line, by all means watch 'em, but here's a newsflash:

In combat, you don't look up from your cover and suddenly feel relieved because John Wayne just strolled by and dropped 150 enemy with one shot from his weapon. Or in the case of The Thin Red Line, you don't ponder the philosophical questions of the universe with perfectionist awe.

When your sitting on a hunk of cold concrete with a support cable digging into your thigh and hypervelocity slugs ripping past your ears, you think 3 things: "Am I gonna die? When? and How?" The Normandy sea wall scene showed this with the way Private Reiben(Edward Burns) is looking around right before his Sarge tells him to get another B.A.R.

All in all, the effects were astonishing, the acting brilliant, and the plot nearly flawless(The people who bitched about the plot should go rent some Rambo movies if that's the only kind of stuff they can comprehend).

This is as good as movies are ever going to get.

Thank you, cast and crew of Saving Private Ryan.

Rating:
Summary: Best movie ever!
Review: I love this movie! I have watched it over and over again. I wish the ending was a bit different, and I don't know how the heck Shakespere in Love beat it in the Oscars. The first 25 minutes and the last 55 minutes are the best parts in the movie. Corporal Upham should have been court marshalled for his actions in this movie. I also love what they did with the cameras, how they had blood on them at times(like at the beginning and when they did the close up view of Caparzo after being shot.) It makes me think back to what my grandfather went through as a Sargent in New Guinea. I would have liked to have seen some extra footage, but I can't have everything. Al-in-all, the best movie ever, putting Titanic to shame.

Rating:
Summary: best dts sound on movie so far
Review: this dvd is encoded in half the regular bit rate dts suggest to encode. yet bullet-flying-by effect are first rate compared to any other movies i've heard on dvd. funny, but ironically first dts that captured my attention to multi channel audio was 'forest gump' in 1994 at local theater. tom hanks dodging bullets in jungle scene which made every audiances head turning, searching for speakers to find where the sound was coming from. same actor here turning heads again with 'Saving private ryan'.

as far as movie goes... it's a typical hollywood movie, I feel happy ending forced at the end so the saturday night movie goers don't walk out grump. SpielBERG also made his point with biased portrait of german soldiers and jewish star at the cemetery. (when will it stop aigh?)

people complained the video quality is lacking in this movie. I would remind it's done in purpose to reproduce the documental atmostphere. 1.85:1 anamorphic enhanced video looks perfect on my 16X9 50" screen. colors look washed out through out the film on purpose, and lens were kept dirty in certain parts to look more real. I even noticed cirular smoke filter used to focus in center of screen. to create feeling that I'm watching the battle through a view finder, as if I'm running around holding the camera.

over all it's a pretty cool dts demonstration dvd. cinematograph is brilliant. story? hmmm... could've been better.

Rating:
Summary: A film which will go down in history, as a classic!
Review: For many people who will view this movie, will be amaszed on how grafic and realistic the landing was. The storyline keeps you on the edge of your seat. The DTS verison allows the sound to ripe through your body. If you don't have a good digital surround system, don't get the DTS virsion. But, if you do have the system for the DTS, Buy it, and buy it NOW.

Rating:
Summary: Graphic & gory, but nothing I haven't seen before.
Review: 'Platoon' for the Social Security set. The plot is entirely dirivitive. The action scenes seem real, but way, way over the top, especially the first shots on Omaha beach. This has been filmed a hundred times before, but with alot more feeling and sublety than Speilberg seems to be capable of. As General Sherman said, "War is hell" and so is watching this film.