beautiful pictures, but overblown

Rating: 6/10 (9 September 2001)

I just saw "Apocalypse Now Redux," and I found it disappointing. It was all too clear to me that this was A Movie Set, not reality, and people only did things because Mr. Coppola's script said they did. Seeing "Heart of Darkness," the movie about the making of Apocalypse Now, was probably a bad idea too. Instead of American helicopters attacking Vietnam, I saw choppers borrowed from the Filipino army flying through synchronized special effects. Kinda took the fun out of things. I dunno. It's heralded as one of the greatest war movies ever, but I found it just too fictional to be believable (even though it IS beautifully shot).