Tumbling colossus?

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2001)

Coppola's extra hour adds some intriguing touches, but mostly
slows down the urgency of Willard's trip up the river. The coolest
addition: an encounter between Willard and a lonely French
colonial woman (Aurore Clement) that uses gauzy scrims and an
opium pipe to concoct the most sensuous sequence of Coppola's
career. The dumbest: an encounter between the crew on the boat,
and a couple of stranded Playboy Playmates. (In the five-hour
workprint of Apocalypse, available at ebay, one of these chiclets
has a ten-minute monologue. One's mind boggles at the sexual
politics behind such a choice.) Coppola and Walter Murch have
also rejiggered the editing of the rest of the movie, to its detriment:
the maestro no longer possesses the rhythmic command of his
seventies self.