Rating: 
Summary: This is my rifle, this is my Gun!
Review: Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick's take on the Vietnam war, is essentially two films packaged as one. The first half is an amazing piece of cinematic work, while the second half is not quite up to snuff. This gives the film a disjointed feel and leaves one wondering what is the point of the second half. Honestly I would have been happy had he ended with the graduation from Parris Island, even if it would have meant a 45 mintue film.
The first half, as I said, is amazing. R. Lee Ermey turns in an Oscar winning performance (too bad the liberal Hollywood elite failed to even nominate him for an award)as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, the drill instructor who has the task of turning the Marine Recruits into fighting men worthy of the name U.S. Marine. There are so many memerable moments in Ermey's portrayal that I couldn't list them all here. Suffice it to say you will find yourself watching the boot camp sequences again and again.
The second half of the movie drags on, although we are following the main character, "Private Joker" through the rest of his time in the Marine's (or at least the most important part, his tour in 'Nam). Not to take away from Matt Modine's performance, but I was unable to care about his character once he graduated from boot camp so I found myself drifting off during the second half of the movie.
Having said that, I still find myself being forced to rate the film at 4 stars, that's how great the first half of this film is. If you've not seen it, then I suggest you rent it first.
Rating: 
Summary: Forget the rest, FMJ is THE BEST!
Review: Forget about "Apocalypse Now" and "Platoon", "Hamburger Hill" and "Casualties of War". While all of these Nam war movies are entertaining at times, few of them can match Kubrick's treatment of the dark Nam dystopic genre. Modine is quite brilliant as the smarmy, smart allecky Joker. D'Onofrio is haunting as the delayed, affected, and ultimately psychopathic Pyle. But it is the bellowing R. Lee Ermey that makes the film stand out from its peers--the performance of a lifetime.R. Lee's ability to infuse his character with realism--based on Ermey's actual life lived as both a Marine and a Drill Sergeant in the USMC--makes the first half of the film riveting in the utmost. Many critics point to FMJ as a scathing indictment of the military mind and the USMC in particular, as if the first half of the film is criticizing the methods of the USMC with Ermey as a willing participant. This is patently false. While the latter half of the film is certainly a dark gaze into the murk of the Viet Nam experience, the Boot Camp half is almost a commercial for the Marines and R. Lee carries it the whole way. I've never been in the military, and shudder to imagine what going through Marine training must be like. But having seen FMJ and R. Lee at work when I was a teenager, I was damned near ready to sign up! R. Lee is THAT compelling. If you have never heard of R. Lee or if you wonder how this modest ex-Marine, retired after wounds received in the Service, won acclaim as one of Hollywood's most authentic soldier-characters of all time, then you need to see this film. They should play the first half of FMJ on the buss to Paris Island for all the recruits as a sort of Airline Attendant safety video, preparing them for the crucible that is ahead of them. Without R. Lee Ermey, this movie would be nothing.
Rating:
Summary: It was hard to conclude it , but this is Kubrick's best ..
Review: ..In my opinion, of course. I'm not a huge fan of war movies though, but this is an outstanding, anti-belic view here, with hilarious scenes (the first part of the movie is pure escaping sarcasm) and then some serious segments, more focused on the situations that soldiers have during battles. R. Lee Ermey acts incredibly awesome and realistic here, as an instructor who screechs at the trainees all the time, mocking them up and encouraging them to believe that guns are important, but humans are the grand killer with it. Not to mention that it is said that is forbidden to die. This movie debuted nearly after Platoon won a mainstream relevance, and yet I think this movie, even a little underrated, is much more interesting because it projects how things should have really worked out during the private's training for the Vietnam war (and the others too),the colateral effects it might affect them (look at private's Pyle) and the duality of man, as a being who is bewildered between peace and slaughter (the duality of man, as private Joker mention.), trying to conceive what is best: what he is told to do or what he believes is necessary to be done.
Rating:
Summary: One of Kubrick's best: A Masterpiece
Review: I say "one of" because all of his movie's are so damn good. FMJ is quite different, however. While most of his films are slow moving, this film gets right to the point. The actors play their roles well, especially R. Lee Ermey, who is actually a real Gunnery Sergeant. This film is very dialogue driven though, so don't expect much use of the surround sound speakers. And for those who are whining about "NO LETTERBOX IT IS SO STUPID TO SEE IN PANSCAN," keep in mind the film was shot with a camera negative of 4:3, and it is what Kubrick intended. All the theater displays had to be cut down to fit the 1.85:1 screen. So, there's no information missing in the fill frame (4:3) format. So, buy it. It's guarenteed you'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: I hate war films, BUT ...
Review: FULL METAL JACKET is a masterpiece of filmmaking and Stanley Kubrick is a genius. I hate war films, but FULL METAL JACKET isn't your standard guns, guns, guns, corpses, guns, guns, we won the war type film. In fact it is closer to Shindler's List because it focuses on Humans and their mentality at the time of war. Words can't express how great this film is, it will motivate and move you even if like me you hate war films and find them boring and repetitive tripe. FULL METAL JACKET definately IS the greatest war film ever made ... why deprive yourself of this pleasure of filmmaking? Buy it now!
Rating:
Summary: The Duality of Man
Review: "Full Metal Jacket" is two movies in one. Okay, some would argue that that the Tet Offensive and sniper scenes should each be given full billing. But I'm more concerned with the violent change in tone and agenda that takes place between the training scenes and the in country carnage. Part one begins with a montage of the film's actors getting their heads shaved at the beginning of basic training. It's a ridiculous moment, funny and sweet and visceral, culminating in a pile of hair on the ground, and a batch of brand new men ready to be molded. What follows is forty-five minutes of R. Lee Ermey showing the world that he's the hardest damn drill sergeant ever captured on celluloid. Sergeants Toomey ("Biloxi Blues"), Foley ("An Officer and a Gentleman") and Hulka ("Stripes"), some of my personal favourites, ain't got nothing on his Sergeant Hartman (Hard man?). He's locked into fourth gear, loud as the heavens crashing down, and funny as hell. The racism, profanity, and insults that hurl forth from his mouth are sculpted and precise, almost passing for poetry. I suspect Ermey himself came up with a lot of it himself, having served 11 years in the Marine Corps in real life. Kubrick uses Ermey to mold and shape his actors/soldiers, before sending them off to the second part of the movie. But before he does, there's the little matter of Private Gomer Pyle. Vincent D'Onofrio, a normally brawny actor, pulled a DeNiro adding 70 pounds for his role as the pudgy, dim-witted Pyle. D'Onofrio pulls off a dual role here. At times he's an object of ridicule (one scene has him lagging behind the rest of his platoon, as punishment, with his pants down around his ankles and his thumb stuck in his mouth), wearing an ignorant goofy grin even during the most perilous moments. But as the act wears on, D'Onofrio does a wicked slow burn. A menacing leer finds its way to his face. The denouement bursts with psychotic energy, but it doesn't stretch out the drama, as other similar scenes have been wont to do. It's probably the only moment in my experience watching Kubrick where he goes for the economic approach. Bravo, because it's a killer moment that defines what follows in its wake. And what follows is harrowing. Gone are the clean and pristine shots of the army barracks, and the perfect symmetry of the men lined up in front of their footlockers. These scenes, filmed lovingly by cinematographer Douglas Milsome, make way for a more rugged and dirty movie, one less concerned with the rigid order of training, and more aware of the disorder that is warfare. The images become grainy, washed-out, and a little wild. Just like the men. The main link between the two sections is Matthew Modine's Private Joker. So named for a wisecrack on the first day of training, Joker could have become your standard wise guy character, seen in countless war films. But instead, he's the conduit through which the audience experiences the movie. He's a one man Greek chorus, utilizing his position as "combat correspondent" for 'Stars and Stripes' to offer patriotic coverage and liberal commentary on the war effort. Joker is best exemplified by the inherent contradiction between the slogan he's written on his helmet ("Born to Kill") and the peace symbol he wears on his fatigues. When confronted by a Colonel about the apparent hypocrisy of such a semiotic statement, Joker blithely replies that he's trying to show the "duality of man... the Jungian thing." Modine, whose later career became marked by the flippancy but not the weight of Joker, here, in his first major role, gets the complexities of the man just right. We follow Joker, and the men he encounters, through the surprise Tet Offensive, and then into a scene where they must find a sniper in the ghost town that was once Hue City. These sequences show just how far the men from basic training have come. What started out as raw recruits, soft and civil, become nihilistic and rugged he-men. They truly have turned into the killing machines that Sgt. Hartman promised they'd be. Kubrick never lets them be anything else, as he bombards his men from all sides with bombing and gunfire. The Tet scenes find Joker hooking up with a ramshackle group of Marines hell bent on hellfire, and they're wondrous and frightening. The sniper scenes, which carry a quieter mood, pit the platoon against one person instead of the entire NVA. But the danger of being picked off at any moment is tangible. The fear, which underlies the gung-ho nature of the marines, is palpable in every one of these moments. The movie, written by Kubrick along with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford, doesn't feel like other war movies, even though it too is concerned with the machismo inherent in every fighting man. The story here comes across like a literate piece of stage drama. The dialogue spoken by the marines, taking their cue from Ermey's drill sergeant no doubt, is harsh, vibrant, and colourful. Much of it can't be reprinted here (what can is bleakly hilarious: "I wanted to see exotic Vietnam, the jewel of Southeast Asia. I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture... and kill them," deadpans Joker when asked why he serves), but it became one of my greatest joys in discovering how original and profound and credible the screenplay for this movie was. "Full Metal Jacket" is one of Kubrick's more taut movies. There are no moments of slow contemplation or long scenes of dramatic tightening. Things move at a quick pace, are often tempered with the deepest black humour, and are never anything less than visceral. It's a stunning emotional achievement from a director whom I've always accused of being too detached.
Rating:
Summary: The Diary of a Vietnam solider
Review: This is movie is quite addecting, IT takes place from boot camp witch gives you a idea what boot camp really is like
and thean goes to the harsh hell of Vietnam, It will show you how many men went out there wanting to kill and walked back haveing more respect for life. It is a great movie to watch late at night.
Rating: 
Summary: Great film, but I can't think of a worse dvd
Review: Now, you say it's in full-frame and mono and are outraged. Just remember that this came out at a time when nobody had surround sound, and people preferred full-frame over widescreen. Heck, widescreen t.v.'s weren't even for sale. DVD's a couple years ago don't mean what they mean today. I am surprised that after Stanley Kubrick died, they rushed to get all of his films out on dvd. I truly wish they hadn't. That means they don't have time to restore and remaster the soundtrack and picture, and the only feature they can locate is a trailer. This film, like the Shining was shot in 4'3.' Well, yes and no. It was shot that way, and then cut off from the top and bottom to form widescreen. Kubrick always kept that in mind. That is why there were annoying artifacts on the top and bottom of the screen in the Shining, and a helecopter was visible in one shot. I think this dvd is somewhat inderectly anamorphic. When we all buy widescreen t.v's, we have the option with full screen films to either have black bars on the sides, or zoom in, cutting off from the top and bottom, which we should do on this one, because it will form the original theatrical aspect ratio. Kubrick tryed to make his films good in full screen for home video. You can't blame him. When this film was made, dvd wasn't even though of. He thoough 4'3 would be it's only future. Again, like I said, I'll watch it in full frame until I get a 16/9, and then I'll do what I explained 16 lines above. Oh, yeah, this is an awesome movie. God Bless America!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Try it on for size.
Review: *Full Metal Jacket* starts off poorly: Stanley Kubrick, with his usual gift for overstating the obvious, takes up 45 minutes of our time demonstrating that training men to be killers can be a dehumanizing experience for the men. There ARE some masterful moments during this stretch, such as the scene where Vincent D'Onofrio's tub 'o' lard "Private Pyle" is held down and pummelled with soap bars wrapped in hand-towels. (His fellow boot-campers do this because the drill instructor punishes THEM for Pyle's mistakes and slovenly habits.) The cruelty in this scene provides much-needed impetus for Kubrick's intentions with this portion of the movie . . . because, thus far, the movie has merely consisted of the drill instuctor yapping at the recruits, non-stop, like a pit terrier. Lee Ermey in the role is rather funny, and hardly deserves to have his guts blown apart by the put-upon Pyle. (D'Onofrio's reptilian hissing and hysterical line-reading prior to squeezing the trigger is UNINTENTIONALLY funny.) After this incident, which is never referred to again during the rest of the film, Kubrick FINALLY takes us to Vietnam, and interest picks up considerably. One has to admire the director for his rather nutty insistence on creating Vietnam, or at least a war-torn facsimile thereof, in the Midlands. And it's perhaps this very lack of "realistic" scenery that inspires Kubrick to great scenic creativity. The hollowed-out, charred sets, the rubble that seems to go on for miles, the black smoke, the tongues of flame, are magnificently ugly. From a purely visual perspective, *Full Metal Jacket* is one of the most convincing war movies ever made, even if you're not convinced you're looking at Southeast Asia. I enjoyed Kubrick's world-weary soldiers too, though we don't get to know them very well. They're certainly preferrable to the suffering saints of *Apocalypse Now*, *Platoon*, et al. The only serious fault I can find with the Vietnam portion of the movie is the use of slow-motion during the climactic battle between our guys and a deadly accurate Viet Cong sniper. Slow-motion, more often than not, is a sign of a director getting lazy. The tool relies on the stretching-out of the action to provide the dramatic payoff, relieving the director from arriving at that payoff honestly. Well, whatever -- I still recommend the film. After all, you gotta respect a movie that coined the immortal phrase: "Me so horny!"
Rating:
Summary: From boot camp to the war stamp
Review: What Kubrick had in mind in this movie was: what does it take to turn a normal young man into a killer. Well he starts out with stripping the characters down in a dehumanizing boot camp and then he sets them out loaded to the teeth with weapons. This movie is shocking, funny and unforgetable. Probibly the best war movie ever made. The term "Full Metal Jacket" is the casing that surrounds a bullit. Well it is also suppose to signify what these kids end up like after boot camp and then even more so after the war. Hard, hollow and made to kill. I love it how Kubrick uses the Mickey Mouse song at the end when the soldiers are marching through Hue city(which is burning to the ground). He offers the most voilent scenes with the most light hearted music. But there is a poetic point behind this that surpasses irony and it was mentioned half way through the move. The duality of man. Creating and destroying all in one breath. And it was represented time and time again throughout Kubrick's movies. Wathch this movie and you will not be disapointed.
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