Rating: 
Summary: Stephen Lang (Stonewall Jackson) deserves an Oscar!!!
Review: Hands down, Stephen Lang has given the strongest performance of his career as Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Regardless of what you think about the historical character and the films Southern perspective (which is not a bad thing), his performance is nothing short of amazing. Lang presents Jackson as noone else could have, truly convincing me up to the final moment he was Stonewall Jackson! Lang's portrayal of Jackson is not only truthful, but brings out the soul of a deeply spiritual man who fought to his last for what he believed in: his allegiance to God, family and to his native state.I am a Californian who normally finds Civil War history boring, but this film has turned me into a Southern supporter. The Civil War as a war of defense for its independence has been totally overlooked in the classroom and most history books. Do you honestly think Producer/Director/Writer Ron Maxwell didn't do his homework for historical research and accuracy? To all the Yank reviewers with their feathers in an uproar, the truth HURTS! Gods and Generals deserves AT LEAST the following nominations at the Academy Awards: Best Picture, Sound, Musical Score and Actor in a leading role for Stephen Lang. Excellent film!!!
Rating:
Summary: A Clash of Pieties
Review: Reviewers have been very unfair to this film. The intention of a film drawn from a book are often revealed by the changes a scriptwriter or director makes. By making Jackson the focus of the film instead of Lee(who was the hero of the novel)the focus was placed on the competing spiritualities. Jackson enters the battle after prayer Chamberlain quotes a classical author's narrative of Ceasar at the Rubicon. Jackson represents a style of spirituality no longer tenable in our world, which was fading even in his own time, yet many of us are nostalgic for this simplistic faith. neither is Chamberlain's clacisism a replacement. We still search for a spirituality to replace the lost style represented by Jackson. The film deserves the title even more than the novel. The film has a spiritual depth that is rare in a modern film.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must-See for Civil War Buffs
Review: This is a great movie for anyone seriously interested in the Civil War. I say 'Seriously interested', because it's nearly four hours long, and much of that time is taken up with speeches, rather than action. I can find only one shortcoming in the movie--it doesn't cover Antietam. Rumor has it that the battle was shot (no pun intended) and will be released a part of an even longer version of the movie at some point in the future. I came away from this movie feeling that I knew Stonewall Jackson, and I was blown away by Robert Duvall's portrayal of Robert E. Lee. I thought he did a far better job than Martin Sheen did in 'Gettysburg'. One reviewer on this page harrumphed that 'Gods and Generals' is the first film to cover what the Civil War was really about. I think that reviewer missed a very important point. The war was about different things to the North and the South. Of course the South wasn't fighting a war to preserve slavery. Slavery was dead, and most Southerners new it. A surprising number of Southerners were opposed to it on the same moral grounds as their Northern neighbors. But they resented like hell having a bunch of Yankees telling them what to do. To the North, the war really was about slavery, as any school child north of the Mason-Dixon line knows. Lincoln tried his best to confine the issue to preservation of the Union, but he was forced to issue the Emancipation Proclamation to keep Northern support. 'Gods and Generals' has been criticized for a supposedly pro-Southern bias. If you grew up in the North, it does offer a glimpse of how Southerners view the war. There's a reference elsewhere on this page to the war having been referred to at the time as 'the Rebellion'. But those who grew up in the South will recall the old-timers referring to it as 'the Late Unpleasantness'. A quaint term for the bloodiest conflict in American history.
Rating:
Summary: A Near Classic....Flawed but a wonderful piece of history
Review: Gods and Generals can only be described as a near classic. Not as good as Gettysburg, but clearly an incomplete vision of the director's total movie, due out December of 2004. G&G has a clear Southern slant to it. In fact, in some ways the movie would have been better off focusing solely on the Confederates in this movie. Jeff Daniels is wasted in a role that was really unnecessary and in which he obviously showed little interest. Duvall was much to old for the early war RE Lee, who actually had very little gray. The movie lacks the necessary showing of the relationships between the generals, especially Lee and Jackson. It makes it hard to accept Lee really being too moved by Jackson's death when they have shared only about 2 minutes of screen time. In spite of all of that, this movie portrays Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson as a hero of the war, which he clearly was. Brilliant and eccentric, Stephen Lang turns in a totally authentic, Oscar caliber performance. Brian Millan is equally effective as reluctant Union general Handcock, although he needed much more airtime. This movie must be taken for what it is, a historically accurate albiet incomplete portrayal of a different age.
Rating:
Summary: very good movie
Review: Even though I would prefer to have the director's cut, I bought this DVD and it is still a good movie. Having read the book, I was sorry to see how much of the story had been left on the cutting room floor. The movie also does not quite capture the full sense of the impenetrable defenses of the battle for Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg, but felt it was a good reenactment. The best narrative of this battle I have read is in the book Bayonets Forward by J.L. Chamberlain.
Rating: 
Summary: Too CHEEZY !!
Review: I couldn't bare to watch this movie, it is so cheezy. The chezzy lines and fake accents are terrible. If you don't like cheezy movies, then don't get this. The only good thing in this movie were the war scenes. 1 star for Gods, Generals, and Cheese.
Rating:
Summary: A good attempt at a great book
Review: As with all historical narratives that are brought to film, GODS AND GENERALS is just way too much to put in a 4 hour movie. I do not mean this to be sarcastic....I am saying this was a fantastic book, and that it had too much going on to be put into a movie for the general public. It was a book, and it was meant to stay that way. Some reviewers of this film bemoaned all the lengthy dialogue. That is because the film makers tried to be honest with the book, and not to stray far from it. Unfortunately, when you do that, it is not exciting enough to the average viewer. To be honest, I knew this film would be rocked by the public before it even came out, because it would not have enough "action". Please read the book. It is a treasure. The movie was a good one...not a great one.
Rating:
Summary: My first review gets my first star
Review: This movie is bad, very bad. It is boring, very boring. It should be called "Stonewall Jackson until you fall asleep". It degenerates into a movie completely controlled by a supposed "Southern perspective", and God-furin' Stonewall does it all. Even with 150 years having passed, there is no honor in the Southern cause and no point in trying to make the case. All actors perform poorly -- all script is boring, monotonous, repetitive and boring (wait, did I already say boring?) -- the effects are 1970'sh, the battle scenes are corny. As the viewer you are tossed all around the field with no good perspective on what is happening. And for all of you Southern apologists - give it up. As corrupt or questionable as the Union was during the war, the South was 10 times more immoral on all fronts. I've read enough History lesson fodder here to make me sick - just review the movie. Still bashing Lincoln and his proclamation? Get a life, or understand the man for his political genius. I want my money back.
Rating: 
Summary: Weighed down by irrelevency and pretentiousness...
Review: There is, I suppose, two schools of thought when viewing these historical semi-documentary films. One is to watch it for the entertainment value and disregard the historical accuracy. Gods and Generals, I'll admit, does succeed as an entertaining film even with the almost four hour duration and should be appealing to non-history (read non-Civil War) buffs. The other school is, of course, the historian's perspective and how the film realistically (or not) paints the subject matter. Here, Gods and Generals fails terribly on many levels and made the movie for me a somewhat major disappointment. The only real redeeming value in this work is the battle scenes. When a film's producers take the time and trouble to try to accurately depict major Civil War struggles such as First Manassas, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville on the actual battlefields (although the jury is still out in my mind as to whether the Fredericksburg battlfield shown is real or computer enhanced) they get my attention. The battle action shown is somewhat accurate although the producers greatly needed to "set-up" each battle...it's easy for the Civil War buff to understand the charge and counter charge of Henry House Hill at Manassas or the importance and relevancy of Stonewall Jackson's flanking march around the Federal right flank at Chancellorsville, but the general viewer is left to assume that what is shown is how it was and this detracts from the quality of the film in my view. Another downside to this film is the portrayal of Stonewall Jackson...if the producer's intent was to have this as a biographical work, then they should have advertised it as such and let the prospective movie-goer discern whether to see it or not. And if it was the intent, then they've failed miserably. Stephen Lang portrays Jackson not at all like the Jackson thats depicted in the history books...the real Jackson was extremely eccentric (he would occasionally suck on a lemon during a battle), aloof (subordinates never knew where they were headed or why) and very unkempt. The Lang version shows him as clean, warm, personable...almost omnipotent. Nowhere do we see the independant Jackson of Cedar Mountain or the Jackson who pouted so badly during the Peninsula Campaign that he slept under a tree during the critical maneuvers to the Gaines Mill battlefield. These were extremely important components of his character and should have been given equal billing. Another inexcusable omission...how in God's name can any film that portrays the early portions of the Civil War not include George McClellan, the afore mentioned Peninsula Campaign and (the almost criminal omission) the battle at Antietam?? Perhaps the producers could have taken some of the time spent on the contrived scenes like the Confederates singing around the Christmas tree or the ridiculously idealistic conversations that every person (important or not) seemed to have to show these important battles. It would have succeeded in making the film the requisite four hours and would have greatly enhanced the quality of the movie. The movie "Gettysburg" had some of these flaws, but the over-riding virtue of that classic film was the driving intensity and dogged adherence to the standard history that made it stand out. Sadly, Gods and Generals seemed to concentrate too much on the "atmosphere" and lost the big picture because of it. I have not as yet read Jeff Shaara's book that this film was based on, but I'll bet that it was much better organized and much truer to history's version of the initiation of the Civil War.
Rating: 
Summary: What were they thinking?
Review: The battle scenes are very good. But the rest of the movie is God 'n Awful. Steven Lang is a good actor,but he should have had something more to work with. The one prayer missing was the one to the Almighty to put a quick end to the movie. Obviously Ron Maxwell did not have a clue as to how to adapt Shaara's book to the screen. For a time I felt I was going into hyperspace, Manasass-Fredericksburg in a single bound, with but a fleeting mention ov the Valley. There was no point to the movie except maybe to get Ted and the boys back together or to slowly develop Ted's acting career. I wonder if he's getting some sort of tax write-off. It was sad, sad ,sad to see Jeff Daniels, Patrick Gorman , and Bo Brinkman reprise their roles 10+ years later. Tom Berenger apparently was the only one with enough sense not to mess with Father Time. Ditto Martin Sheen, who brought much more to Lee than a staid/frumpy Robert Duval. Ron, stop the madness. Don't do "The Last Full Measure"
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