Been There, Done That, Seen Better

Rating: 2/10 (31 January 2009)

Full Metal Jacket is considered by many to be a great movie. I am not one of those many. In fact I believe quite the opposite. I think this film is not only terrible but repulsive in countless ways. It attempts to show the horrors of war but does nothing but trivialize them. Also what exactly is the message of this movie? That war is bad? Well if thats what the message it certainly isn't something new. Of course then this movie has to make up in what lacks in an original message with some sort of creativity and stylistic features. In this way the film fails horribly.
The acting of many of the relatively unknown actors is at best average. No actor stands out except for that of Vincent D'Onorfio who makes his exit less than half way through the film. The directing and writing of the film is absolutely horrible with the first half of the film used as a build up to a flat second half. Its almost as if the film is actually two separate ones: an average one and a disgraceful one. In the basic training sequences which takes up most of the first half of the film comes off as more hilarious then a brutal depiction of man being forcibly turned into machine. In the 2nd half of the film many of the sets made it too obvious that it was exactly that; a set. They were unconvincing with a lack of a realistic touch and screen shots out of a TV movie.
As the movie wore on the lack of attention to detail became quite apparent leaving much to be desired. The "tough" characters came off as cheesy as everything seemed to just collapse within itself. The dialog in the movie felt useless and inconsistent with what was happening with in the film. By the end I didn't even care what was taking place. There were no character motivations and scenes became very predictable. Compared to the many classics made about Vietnam this one doesn't even come close.