Okay a long time ago in a galaxy far away I did a semi review of Saving Private Ryan. Well I’m off to see The Thin Red Line. I personally don’t think it can live up to Private Ryan. So check back in a few hours for my witty review of The Thin Red Line. And don’t confuse it with that Mark Hamill/Lee Marvin WWII flick.

It sucked. It sucked big time. Well enough of my witty banter. In doing some research on Terence Malick and the Battle of Guadalcanal I found this very witty review on moviefinder.com. This guy who wrote this review must have channeled every thought I was thinking watching that stinkburger of a movie. So with out further ado I present the review:

National Geographic’s Guadalcanal

By filming this WWII combat movie like a nature documentary, director Terence Malick has managed to create the most beautifully photographed (and ponderously philosophical) war film ever made. Starting off with a South Seas island village so peaceful and picturesque the natives do everything but sing “Bali Hai” we then go to the battle of Guadalcanal where the GIs are photographed so beautifully (the dirt is smeared evenly over their handsome faces) it looks like Calvin Klein led the invasion. And the philosophy! Spouting questions and metaphors in voiceover narration about evil in nature and the meaning of life, these soldiers must have had English lit as part of their basic training. Among the younger cast, only Sean Penn is talented enough to create a realistic character: the pain in his face as he delivers his philosophical dialogue manages to show that his soldier has EARNED his jaded point-of-view. The rest, most of whom get less screen time than the animal close-ups, are hard to even tell apart. As the only one who realizes he’s in a war movie, Nick Nolte walks away with the picture in the one terrific performance. Cameos by John Travolta and George Clooney are ineffective and distracting, the combat scenes hard to follow, and the thin red plot over-extended at such a tedious pace that I began to expect Brad Pitt showing up any moment as Death. For the same good/evil nature debate in a war movie based on a James Jones novel, rent “From Here To Eternity,” which manages to tell an emotional story about realistic characters in under two hours without close-ups of birds, trees and bamboo chimes.

By the way, there was a version done back in 1964. The first version of James Jones book was directed by a guy named Andrew Morton, who also did The Longest Day. Its not on video. I also disagreed on the this guys opinion of Nolte’s performance. Nolte sucked. Don’t waste your money on this piece of shit.