A film of two halves

Rating: 8/10 (8 July 1999)

The opening scenes of Full Metal Jacket seemed full of promise. Having seen many of Kubrick's previous works, I had extremely high hopes for the film, and was not disappointed. The Drill Sergeant was a great character (the constant barking was hideous and yet at times could be incredibly funny), as was Pyle. However, once Pyle's descent into insanity was complete and the Sergeant and him were both dead in the Head, I began to wonder where the film could go.
Downhill seems to be the answer. Sure, the Vietnam scenes were decent, but they did not belong in a film with such a fantastic opening. "Joker" irritated me - though I felt I was supposed to identify with him. As for the other soldiers: they seemed a little too 2-dimensional, being divided roughly along the lines of "cool-headed" and "blood-thirsty lunatics". To its credit, the Vietnam scenes seemed realistic enough in some cases (Kubrick highlighted this by actually giving part of the film the form of a documentary being made) - but they simply did not seem to fit in with what had gone before. There were several points when the screen faded to black and I thought it was the end, only to discover that there was more to come (I seem to remember sighing at this).
I suppose I shouldn't really complain about the ending not having been sooner though, since the end, when it did come, was beautiful, and complimented the dark tones which were far more evident during the Island part of the story than any of the rest of the action in Vietnam. Having the soldiers sing "Mickey Mouse" was an inspired choice.