Copolla's Apocalypse

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2007)

Warning! Spoilers Ahead! This movie seems like the high-water mark for Francis Ford Copolla; nothing he has made since has been as favorably reviewed in the eyes of most critics. This is the third Copolla movie I've seen, and, while I admire Copolla's ambition, the film does not compare to his two classic Godfather movies. Simply put, the acting is not as excellent, and there are too many extraneous scenes.
The movie is most definitely NOT a straight Vietnam war movie, or even a straight war movie, period. There is little attempt at realism here. It is, simply, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" set in the Vietnam War. Kurtz, as he was in the novel, is an idealistic white man who is the best of the best in his own civilization but, when exposed to the other-worldliness of a non-Western tropical society beset with colonial exploitation and the white man's savagery while trying to "tame" this landscape, he himself becomes the most demonic of the savages. Conrad's protagonist in the framework story, Marlowe, is reinvented as an out-of-it army officer assigned to kill the savage Kurtz. While he moves toward's Kurtz's lair in the heart of the jungle, he encounters the madness of Vietnam, including the Americans' disregard for human life, a battle without a commanding officer, and crazed GIs, bereft of the veneer of civilization, assaulting a USO show featuring Playboy bunnies. The results are ultimately uneven, and this may be due in large part to the difficulties of adapting Conrad's novel to the screen, especially when set in the context of the Vietnam War.
Conrad's novel was meant to highlight the horrors of white cruelty towards Africans in the Belgian Congo in their pursuit for ivory and rubber wealth. The Vietnam War is a bit more ambiguous with regards to similar colonial ambitions. Historians today still debate the reasons for the Americans entering Vietnam, but it seems a bit of a stretch to compare Vietnam with the blatant colonialism Conrad was describing. Copolla made a rather odd choice by selecting Vietnam as a proxy for the savagery of Belgian colonial rule, and this made his adaptation all the more difficult. Secondly, Copolla also had difficulty translating Conrad's symbols in a visual format. The savage whites are shown as helicopter pilots who spray bullets and fluorescent napalm on helpless victims below. It all seems like too much for the senses to take in. The massacre on the riverboat seems too quick and abrupt, and does not flow smoothly with the theme of savagery Copolla apparently had in mind.
Copolla, unfortunately, did not have the perfect cast of actors he had in "The Godfather." Martin Sheen is very good as the Marlowe character, but, as he is the "narrator" of the story, his participation is mostly subdued. Marlon Brando has deteriorated greatly since his role as Don Corleone. His delivery is monotone and stiff, and his acting utterly lethargic. He clearly seems to be going through the motions as the Kurtz character. The actors on Marlowe's boat do well, but do not compare to the "Godfather" cast.
In all, this was a highly ambitious and worthy film, but the difficulty of placing this vision on screen makes it flawed. The best scene is in the "redux" version, where Martin Sheen faces the last vestiges of desperate colonialism on a French rubber plantation. That alone is a classic movie scene, and much closer to Conrad's work than most of the film's frantic, chaotic scenes. I recommend "Apocalypse Now," but do not expect a masterpiece.