Loses momentum in the second half but it still hits hard

Rating: 8/10 (6 November 2014)

Proving there's pretty much nothing he can't do once again (except maybe for sweet kids movies), Stanley Kubrick returns to the war genre with this Vietnam drama, which is in 2 parts. The first half is at a training camp with a foul mouthed drill sergeant terrifying the new recruits and driving one to insanity. Then we get to the war front, and it's almost a relief. From then on the film is an intense, well directed assault on the senses as the film enters the battlefields. Amazingly, Kubrick created a vivid Vietnam set in rural England. Full Metal Jacket is another display of his incredible and singular talents as a director. The first half is soul shattering and utterly harrowing; it has the best improvisation ever from real life drill sergeant R Lee Ermey and the camera work is typically flawless. The bullying and eventual suicide of Private Pyle is harrowing to watch, and despite Kubrick's typical emotional distance the first half is perfection and will leave audiences shaken to the core.
The second half feels more like an afterthought since the message has been exhausted and the far less interesting sergeant Joker is given the job of carrying the film which he doesn't do brilliantly. The scenes of warfare are powerful and intense, and show the horrors of war reasonably well but we do have Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan for that. The screenplay is well written throughout and it is another fine cinematic vision of war, but the film seems to lose heart after the boot camp section ends. This is the weakest out of the 5 Kubrick movies I've seen but it's still excellent. Although the second half is weaker, it's still well directed and emotionally intense, so it doesn't drag the movie down too much. However, there is a sense of wasted potential and it would have been better to stage the entire film at the boot camp. The boot camp is far scarier than any haunted house and carries some strong thematic resonance. Although it feels like 2 different films, both are anti war films and both convey their message adequately.
8/10