A disappointing and flawed film

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 1999)

Stanley Kubrick, one of my favorite directors, has made many masterpieces, but this one is really a letdown. The first half of the movie is great, focusing on the demoralization of the soldiers-in-training that has a tragic ending. The immensely entertaining Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey) and his barrages of derigatory lines designed to wear out the new recruits adds to the sheer brilliance of the movie's first part.
In the second part though, I grew more and more bored. There weren't enough character development. I felt nothing for the two soldiers who got slaughtered in an ambush, and at the end when the soldiers shot the girl, as gruesome it may looked, I felt no pain whatsoever. Also, part two of the movie seemed like a sloppy job on cutting and pasting scenes, and the plot made the soldiers wander around aimlessly.
Kubrick may have tried to let the audience feel the no-remorseness and aimlessness that some of the soldiers must have felt in Vietnam war, but this is too cerebral and have left me unengaged emotionally. Worst of all, the scene where the soldiers were being interviewed by journalists became disgustingly artificial as one by one, the soldiers started to say their one-liners in a perfectly-timed sequence. The ending where the soldiers march singing the Mickey Mouse Club tune is somewhat a redeeming scene.
My advice is, watch the first part of this movie only, turn it off, and watch "Saving Private Ryan" as the substitute for part two of Full metal Jacket. I know no one is perfect, it's just that I expected a lot more from Kubrick.