A Visually Astounding War Movie With Emotion and Power

Rating: 9/10 (23 January 2001)

When Apocalpyse Now first premiered, it was the subject of much scandal and gossip. It was rumoured that Coppola never liked the ending,which has been talked about by many critics. There were rumours of tension on the set between Coppola and Brando. That Brando had showed up overweight and was simply not ready.
Once the movie finally premiered, it was immediately acclaimed as maybe the greatest war movie ever made. With its technical affects and beautiful directing, some of the best I have ever seen, it was named as one of the hundred greatest films ever made. It's famous catch-phrase, which has become as memorable as anything else, "I love the smell of nepalm in the morning" has drenched itself into the English language.

While the movie has had its critics, for the last act which many deem to be flawed, it is still maybe one of the most powerful movies ever made. It was nominated for 8 academy awards and won two for best editing and best cinematography.
The movie chronicles the events of Benjamin Willard on a mission to find the elusive Kurtz, played by Brando, and to "kill him." On now cinemtically famous trip down the river, he studies the man and wonders what could have made him leave all the wars behind and live in seclusion with followers. Kurtz had at one point been one of the greatest soldiers in the army. One of the most admired people there, with every award imaginable, but one day, a call was received. He had started giving out orders for things that were not requested by the army. He had won the battles, alright, but it was not authorized. Pretty soon the army could handle it no longer and wanted to get him back.
He wouldn't come back. A previous soldier had been asked to find him there and he himself decided to stay there with a letter to his wife saying "sell the house, sell the children..." This fixation is pressed upon a the Willard character, a person in bad need of redemption, a person so accustomed to war, it has now become a fixation. The majority of the movie takes place with a wide assortment of characters as they are led through a river to where Willard must get of. In through the characters on the boat we see different assortments of people and the way they choose to deal with death and dying. The characters pass upon people dying, and making a brief stop at a base to where they can enjoy some playboy playmates.
The story moves on and into the final act. Through that we see and understand things about the war. We see how the human being is dehumanised through war. We begin to see the struggle of managing and training people to kill others. We begin to see the unindividualised attitude of the whole idea of war.
The movie ends with the now famous lines made by Willard: the horror, the horror
The movie I must say in my opinion is the greatest war movie ever made in trying to portray the physical side of war. The moving and image shots of the airplanes in the air, the airplanes crashed through trees, the shots of soldiers fighting and murdering. The scene, my personal favorite, with Duvall's character putting on Wagner Ride of the Valykires was spectacular. The special effects, which are ten times more powerful than anything hollywood has ever produced, were simply spectacular. The directing was astounding and should have won the Oscar in 1979. Its overall imagry and brutally honest portrayel of war was simply amazing.
But it is not a perfect movie. It has its flaws. The character of Sheen, in my opinion was not right. I think his character came through the movie as a parody of what we think a character like him should be. The movie itself, in my opinion came of a parody in certain parts, especially in the beginning with the voice-overs. There was lots of great acting, but none that I would say perfect. At times it seemed as if they were ooveracting and simply being too unrealistic. The voice-overs in my opinion were very important though to make sure that the audience doesn't get bored and tune of out of the movie while the shots of the airplanes were shown. The voice-overs worked as entertainment for the audience during scenes that would have seemed unnecessary if not for the distraction of the voice-over.

I do not think this is the greatest war movie ever made. I don't think anything can be the greatet war movie ever made. A war movie deals with so much and so many topics, it is literally impossible to create a war movie that is perfect in everything sense. The two things taht war movies usually deal with are: the realism of war through its shots and camera work and battle footage, and the other thing is the psychological side of war, what it does to man, how it does it to man, why it does it to man. This was done incredibly well in Apocalypse Now, but it wasn't it's main focus, that's it failed to be the best of all movies at it. Apocalypse's job was simply to be real and brutally honest on hour war appears and seems to the one who is in it.
But I must say this movie was incredible in every other respect. As I said earlier, its directing was incredible, the visuals powerful, the scenes memorable, brutally honest, real, and ambitious in every way. In some ways its ambition caused it in some ways to fail, but in other ways it made it into "one of the greatest movies ever made"-American Film Institute.