Apocalypse is Still Now

Rating: 9/10 (3 July 2008)

Another movie genre which I had decided to keep away from was that of war movies. My idea of a war movie is that of just blood and gore and directors and producers taking advantage of a problem that gets more critical every day. Some of these movies might just suit this description, but Apocalypse Now does not.
I had previously become familiar with Francis Ford Coppola's work on his Godfather movies, both of them which I greatly enjoyed. This time, along with John Milius, Coppola created a script for Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", hired the cast and crew, and flew over to the Pacific, to start filming what will end up in more than eight hours in footage of Apocalypse Now.
The story basically deals with Captain Willard being assigned on a secret mission to hunt down Coronel Kurtz, an ex-American soldier charged of murder, and who seems to have lost his mind and is worshiped by the native Cambodians as a god.
Actors would have killed in order to get one of the main character roles. There are many interesting ones, very complex characters; starting by Coronel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, whose story would be revealed by Captain Willard as the movie goes by. Willard, played by Martin Sheen seems to have a high sense of responsibility in completing his mission, but as the story develops he becomes more convinced of the unnecessarily battle. And finally there is the supporting role of Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore. That is, without mentioning the guys who accompanied Willard, their different ages and personalities and the problems that this differences cause.
The redux edition features a new movie cut, which will take through four hours of great landscape shots of the Oriental region, comedic moments, and situations which will portrait the whole context of the Vietnam War. Don't be scared by its running time, I'm not going to say its fast-going, but it will keep you seated enough time to watch it in one try.
This is clearly an anti-war movie, and when the Pentagon found about this, they started a censorship campaign which resulted in the movie's failure at the Oscars. But in the end, time has given reason to Apocalypse Now, making it one of those movies every so-called movie lover must watch.