Brando ruins a superb movie

Rating: 7/10 (12 March 1999)

This film could have been one of the best films ever made but Brando ruins it and is largely responsible for the weak ending. The film is a superbly photographed, surrealistic and dream-like odyssey of Captain Willard. Martin Sheen is outstanding. The bizarre, weird, horrible and morbidly funny intertwine themselves so skillfully that you almost feel like you are there. One of the quotes always remembered about this movie is "I love the smell of napalm in the morning". But when Duval says "Charlie can't surf!" That does it for me. When Willard gets to where Kurtz is it feels like one of those extremely bad dreams where you have been on a long search and you are dog tired and scared to death.But when we get to Kurtz he seems inadequate and not even close to what you are led to expect. The last words he utters are "The horror....The horror". The horror is Brando's weak personna and lacklustre performance. The ending is less than satisfactory even with Kurtz "terminated with extreme prejudice."