Okay, but not a blockbuster

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2001)

I was not overly impressed with Bruckheimer and Bay's project which has been hyped for so many months. It is a solid picture, certainly, but I could feel it being pulled in so many different directions that it was unable to become a war movie, or a love story, or a story of the triumph of the human spirit, all of which it attempted to be. You've basically seen all the effects before (some were taken almost verbatim from "Saving Private Ryan") and I felt that the love story, while good, needed to be something else. Either it needed to *be* the whole film, with the war as a background, or it needed to be left to the wayside entirely and instead concentrate on the tactics and emotions of war.
In any case, the movie is worth a look, but I don't think it deserves the hype it's been getting. (Though what movie these days does deserve its hype?)