An Amazing First Act Ruined By The Rest of The Film

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2016)

Stanley Kubricks, Full Metal Jacket is widely considered to be one of the definitive war films, yet when I heard about it all I ever heard about was about the first act which is a new platoon of soldiers being trained by a cruel drill instructor so I was really wondering if the film was only focused on the training of the troops. It doesn't and that we're this film truly lost it for me. But I do think this film has plenty of positives, as I said the half of this movie is truly amazing it's intense and has an amazing performance for R Lee Emery I thought he was so convincing as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman he was hilarious and imposing and is by far the greatest thing about this movie. An extremely young Vincent D'Nofrio is in this movie and he was also amazing in this film, he was such a sympathetic character and even when he starts improving you still feel for him because you know just how much this training process has taken from him. I'm pretty sure it goes without saying that Stanley Kubrick directed this film to perfection, he always he something visually interesting happening on screen and their was never a dull moment for that first half. My praise pretty much stops there I think the last half of this film was dull, boring and tensionless. A big part of that was due to the completely boring protagonist, he never leaves any impression on the viewer and has absolutely no character development or arc. Honestly other than D'Nofrio nobody has any kind of character development and it really shows in the action sequences were there is absolutely no tension whatsoever because every character is interchangeable. The first half of this movie was incredibly intense because we saw the effects it had in the characters, the last half doesn't take the time to do this they just go on as if nothing's happened. The Vietnam arc of this film is simply just boring because it's pretty much just the same shots repeated for the last hour, Private Joker standing around talking to someone while other soldiers fight in the background.
I wanted to love this movie, I really did but I couldn't, it's got far to many flaws when it comes to its characters and how it handles the arc in Vietnam. I honestly believe that if this film had just focused on the training of the platoon then this film would have been fantastic and tension filled, things that were very much lacking from the rest of the actual film.
58%/C+