The twisted circus of Vietnam.

Rating: Null/10 (26 September 2002)

This review is for Apocalypse Now Redux. I have not seen the original and this is the first encounter with the movie that Francis Ford Coppola is obsessed with. Some have applauded this new version, others have condemned it. This is my first take, as if it was the only version around. Here goes...
While F.F. Coppola is famed for his Godfather movies, he has spent his free time obsessed with his fine Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now. In the summer of 2001, he re-issued his director's cut version and dubbed it Apocalypse Now Redux.
The film's plot is pretty simple. Martin Sheen is Captain Ben Willard, a man who has already spent too much time in 'Nam that he's prone to going a bit crazy at times. Willard is sent on a mission to go into the Cambodia border and eliminate a rogue Colonel named Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando). It's the trip that's the true horror story, and it's a disturbing one. Willard and his crew find love, death, horror, bravery, and excitement throughout the 3 and a half hour film. It seems that one day they find an opulent house owned by expatriate Frenchmen and the next they find a warzone that looks like a circus that has been bombed to death. Eventually, Willard reaches Kurtz and discovers that maybe the two men have more in common than being shafted by the U.S. Army.
The acting is very good, what with a cast that has Brando, Sheen, Dennis Hopper, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, and a teenaged Laurence Fishburne. The music by F.F and Carmine Coppola is very ominous and disturbing. The violence is the same as the music: strong, difficult to watch, and grisly. There are touches of M*A*S*H like humour, such as surfing in the warzone, and some memorable lines (you know which ones).
Still, I didn't enjoy this one as much as Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". The film is way too long and scenes can go on forever. He portrays Vietnam as the Hell many said it was, but he overstates it way too much. They don't mar the film's grandeur; this is an epic, but it could stand to lose some running time. I liked it, but it just doesn't have as much bite as "Full Metal Jacket" had, nor will it be as memorable to me, but it's still a very good film. Your tastes will vary.
Some notes: the creative consultant was Dennis Jakob, a classmate of F.F.C. at UCLA and the man who let Jim Morrison live on his roof where he composed the songs that would make him famous. Also, now I know where they got the inspiration for the voice of Konami's Metal Gear Solid hero Solid Snake from: Martin Sheen's Captain Willard.