Long, Drawn-Out Civil War Migraine-Inducer.

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2003)

The film that was supposed to serve as a jump-board for producer Ted Turner to make the very large leap from television production to the silver screen, "Gettysburg" ends up becoming a trial of a film to sit through. It is a legitimate kidney buster/sleeping pill as the film runs over 250 minutes (not a misprint). The title says it all as the Battle of Gettysburg is the focus to bring a wide range of characters together from the Union and the Confederacy back in the summer of 1863. Most definitely the most famous battle of the U.S. Civil War was Gettysburg. That is why this movie is such a large disappointment. Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger and Stephen Lang (playing a different role from "Gods and Generals") are the key performers from the Confederacy's perspective while Jeff Daniels, Sam Elliott and C. Thomas Howell dominate the action on the North's side. Writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell shows his shortcomings as a film-maker here as he tries to make an epic ala David Lean and ends up landing flat on his face. The production values are not as high as they should be and everything has that television mini-series feel to it. The actors struggle through with corn-filled dialogue and interminable battle sequences that looked rushed and un-choreographed. More dull than being in a sorry teacher's history class, "Gettysburg" shows some of the worst things the cinema has to offer. It is an under-achieving dud of epic proportions. Would be followed by equally dim-witted prequel "Gods and Generals" 10 years later in 2003. 2 stars out of 5.