Amazingly Average

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2019)

A movie that's amazingly average. Kind of like the marines (or should I say "maggots") ground down by their offices in to becoming autonomous killing machines, audiences seem to lap up conventional opinion likes drones and fail the think for themselves, instead accepting and echoing what everyone has said, or is, saying. The first half of the movie is far better, and feels utterly disjointed and disconnected from the second. By far the most interesting, intense, and grim part of the second half is the section with the hidden sniper, which did draw me out of my state of boredom. The ending was lazy, and the overall the film fall far short of the sum and its parts, failing to develop a coherent narrative, characters, or message. Heck, had it not dragged so badly in parts, and/or seemed so amateurish in its editing, it might not have been so bad. At least 'Full Metal Jacket' is still watchable, but it's not way near as good as the praise that's been lavished upon it. Had this movie been released today, it would have flopped critically and with audiences. But because its an established 'classic', the emperor with no clothes scenario continues ever onwards. Still, it has its merits, unlike that other alleged classic 'The Deer Hunter' (1/10* in my opinion), which is excruciatingly and embarrassingly awful, and similarly lapped up blindly by the masses. Don't view these films by their received accolades, but as a piece of cinema with an impartial eye. It's a pass, just. 6/10*