Kurtz's Final Judgment

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2005)

As a huge fan of the novella, and someone who actually understands it, maybe it isn't fair for me to comment on this movie. Even if the movie had been done correctly, and had done justice to the book, I probably wouldn't have been all that happy with it. But even so, I think I have the right to complain when a deep and though provoking story, with a fairly clear message, is drained of all meaning in the movie version.
In the novel Kurtz's dying words, "The Horror, the Horror" were a summing up of everything the story was saying. That man is basically evil, our hearts are black, all we seek is our own pleasure, and that the only thing keeping us from becoming savages ourselves are the carefully placed guidelines of society.
The movie isn't so clear about "The Horror" line. As near as I can tell, and from talking to people who haven't had the pleasure of reading the novel, "the horror" is referring to war itself. My response to this is "duhhhhhhhh." Of course war is horrible. The movie should have ended after it's only brilliant scene that makes this abundantly clear. The scene where the soldiers kill a child after she makes a silly move to save the life of her pet puppy. Now do you really need to be told that war is horrible after this? Is that a conclusion you need some help to reach? If it is then you're a moron!