M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Rating: Null/10 (24 February 2001)

There is such a misunderstanding of Full Metal Jacket today. But what can I say here that hasn't been said already? What is significant about this film is its insignificance. We all know that Kubrick could have made a sweeping Transcendental war film such The Thin Red Line (a brilliant, brilliant combination of WW2 and Emersonian beliefs) or one that more aptly shows human behavior under the most extreme of circumstances. But in Full Metal Jacket he deliberately leaves out such glorification. You will notice an absence of dramatic lines or symbolic encounters. Not that there isn't plenty of symbolism in the movie (the "head" sign in the bathroom is one that stands out in particular) its just that Kubrick buries them so deeply.
After my initial viewing of FMJ, I was rather unimpressed. The movie seemed to have a complete lack of substance or of meaning, and thus I felt no strong emotional involvement with the experience. But the more I studied it, I realized that this entire film was a work of massive poetic justice to a concept which deserves no glorification and posses no substance: war. By no means am I attempting to say that Kubrick purposely made a bad film in order to emphasis the meaninglessness of war. But it is necessary to understand what was left out of FMJ in order to better understand what was left in.
The soldiers in the film are like a deck of cards. They are all distinct yet somewhat stereotypical. We've all seen types like them before in various other movies yet Kubrick so shamelessly places them here. Joker, just as the joker-card implies, is the "wild card". He serves as the audience's beacon of hope in the midst of adversity.
And so the theme of the movie becomes clear: society is attempting to turn these human beings into mindless, remorseless, killing machines without an identity. It's ironic that the Pyle, who has the hardest time conforming in the film, transforms into the most brutal killing machine- so deadly that he destroys himself.
And this is the tragedy of the film. The real enemy is the unseen merciless hand of society. When Joker must deliver the fatal blow to the dying sniper at the film's conclusion, he signs over his soul. In the last few minutes of the movie, all the soldiers sing the Mickey Mouse song. This is Kubrick's way of saying that pledging your allegiance to society is as empty and absurd and believing in omnipotent. Mickey mouse. -I love this film.