Standard WWII movie

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 1999)

The initial 30 minutes are groundbreakingly realistic, and probably give a truer sense of what it was like to storm the Normandy beaches than any film that has come before.
Unfortunately, the middle half of the film wanders about aimlessly, as the characters - a checklist of war-types - gather themselves for the finale, which sets the soldiers on a well-worn path. Also, the attitudes of the soldiers reflects the cynical, resentful 1960s generation of war protesters and draft dodgers, not the genuinely heroic generation that actually fought WWII. As a result, I think this film (like almost everything else) pales next to the more authentic THE LONGEST DAY; another good one is THE BIG RED ONE which features a checklist of movie-army-types led into battle by Lee Marvin, and is similar in structure to RYAN but more authentic as well.
That said, the opening scenes and the finale feature some of the best war scenes ever filmed. The movie works on another level as well: we're the ones who were saved by that generation's ultimate sacrifice, and like Ryan we should be asking ourselves, "What have I done to deserve the sacrifices made for _me_?"