Great Movie, Bad Headache

Rating: 8/10 (30 July 1998)

The first segment makes you say, "hmmm, I wonder what this is about". Then it cuts to the Omaha Beach invasion. As war-realistic as Spielberg wants us to believe it is, the most realism that this segment portrays is the excruciating pains WW2 soldiers felt as compared to our excruciating headaches we received from this "vibrating cam". Don't get me wrong. I think the first and last war segment should have been shot with this camera, but all the segments in between should have been toned down. Any scene shot with this cam would make just about any person want to vomit, whether it be a love scene or just a still scene. I understand that Spielberg wanted to mix the effect received psychologically to make one uncomfortable with the effect received from the explosions, blood, guts, and screaming to make this movie seem "real". Well, it worked. But still, it was a movie that people want to be entertained, and the only entertainment received was during the calm scenes. On the IMDB scale, I gave it an 8. Bad spec writing, but good rewriting by Frank, who gave us Malice, Get Shorty, and Out of Sight. Great direction. Bad cam, bad!