'Ryan' is good but OVERRATED

Rating: 10/10 (7 March 2003)

I voted a 1 for this movie. Not because I hated It but because I do not believe it deserves to be this high on the IMDB Top 250 (#47). At the Oscars in '99 many were surprised that this picture lost the best picture award. Well I was not. But I was very disappointed that Shakespeare in Love did! The best picture award should either have gone to Elizabeth or to La Vita É Bella. Those were the two best pictures of 1998 (at least the best ones that were nominated). I thought it would be "La Vita...". 'Ryan' just isn't THAT Good. I mean...I did believe that it would be the one with the second most awards because of technical awards like sound, sound editing, editing and cinematography which it all won. Those were the best aspects of the film. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN DESERVED THESE AWARDS MORE THAN ANY OTHER FILM THAT YEAR because they made the "NORMANDY" SEQUENCE a CLASSIC! That is also the only reason I felt that Steven Spielberg should have won the Best Director award. He and Benigi were the only one who created a classic scene and he won. Either him or Roberto Benigi deserved to win. The bad aspects (Tom Hanks and the Screenplay by Robert Rodat) however ARE BAD because they just don't work. It's not that he's a bad actor but he just does not fit the picture. Neither does Matt Damon by the way...and Ted Danson? What was he doing in there? (*SPOILER*)Anyway...at The Battle for the Bridge-sequence when Hanks is dying and he says the line; 'Earn this...Earn it...' coming out of the mouth of Hanks it just sounds so CORNY to me...He was a better actor playing a dying man in PHILADELPHIA. As for the Screenplay...there's nothing that really sparks interest so... Oh yeah another thing...John Williams score should not have even been nominated. There is just one good piece of music; The Hymn of the fallen. The rest is just like the REST of the movie. Dreary, boring and above all uninteresting. It fits the movie but a dreary, boring, uninteresting film is not what people want to see. It's NOT worth the nomination... That's all.