too long but couldn't have been shorter

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2005)

Two words: Cutting edge. The film remained quite different from its surroundings at the time. It was the first war film in a long time to receive good acting while many war films were about glory and pure action. It depicted war as a depressing era of death and insanity. While other Nam movies like The Killing Fields (although a great movie) just killed off soldiers, Apocalypse Now made you feel like you lost a member of your family when a soldier died. I felt that the film was to long but with all the information in the film, it couldn't have been shorter. For todays standards people of a younger generation will not appreciate the brilliancy of this film sheerly because from a war film they would expect more violence than dialogue. The Redux version does not compare to the original version and many people will seem impatient as they watch. I suggest eighteen or over not because of the violence, but because it will not appeal to someone younger than that age.