Reality Check

Rating: 6/10 (30 May 2004)

The only good thing about this film is the realistic depiction of the landing. Even that, though, comes off as patchy and episodic; you aren't really left with a good sense of what happened. When you consider Cornelius Ryan's book about D-Day, this is the polar opposite: there are no details. One minute you see people being blown up and floating in the water, then people getting their guts blown out on the beach, then the tanks are moving inland.
Actually, to me, this film continues to have a core strength that is very interesting very far into the film. When I saw it, I was realizing that the ending was coming and I didn't hate it yet, and was frankly amazed. But then, all the cheese I expected of the Spielberg/Hanks combo came out with a vengeance in the finale.
Steven Spielberg is a hackneyed stooge. He's lucky that he came up at the same time that the movies were turning into titilation machines. He'd have starved in the '40s. Five minutes of Orson Welles' worst film make his career look like a joke.