Oh, puhleeeeese

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 1999)

This is a silly movie. Spielberg should stick to special effects for fantasy movies. His one foray into real life drama that worked, Schindlers List, was fine, but this is too much. It is full of holes (what was the point of confronting the first Ryan, who was not THE Ryan), it indulges in highly improbable events to prop up the frail and flimsy script (coming across the REAL Ryan by accident in a fight with a German half track!!!)and resorts to American false heroics to find somewhere to stop the fighting (American fighters blast the German tank as it is about to shoot our hero). This movie takes a noble message, reinforces it with stunning special effects, then shoves it in a vacuous and pretentious story that simply falls over. And the cast don't cut it. War is hell. So is this movie.