It's better than no movie adaptation...

Rating: 7/10 (13 August 2000)

A lot of people hate this movie because it's a real "Reader's Digest" form of the lengthy novel. I know, because I used to be one of them. Entire characters are cut out, so are entire chapters; so is most of the book. It's probably better to have read the book first, that will definitely make the movie easier to follow. Of course, if you have only seen the movie and didn't hate it, you should also read the book, which as far as I'm concerned is just as much an American Classic Novel as anything by Hemingway, Steinbeck or Twain. Part of the reason I changed my mind about this movie is because of the superb casting: Alan Arkin as Yossarian, a very young Martin Sheen as Dobbs, Anthony ("Psycho!") Perkins as the Chaplain, Orson Welles as Gen. Dreedle and Buck Henry as Col. Korn - please look up the full cast under the IMDB entry for this movie and see for yourself. I also came to like this movie more and more by watching it several times over the years and noticing all sorts of nice little touches, such as when several pilots give Col. Cathcart the "thumbs up" sign as they take off on a mission, while Yossarian flips him off. All in all, this is actually a much better adaptation of Joseph Heller's classic novel than most people give it credit for. Of course, it would be great to see this movie remade in a version about twice as long to fit in a lot more of the book. It would also make a great mini-series on TV, assuming that anyone out there still wants to see one of the strongest anti-war statements of the twentieth-century.