A Movie We Don't Need

Rating: 1/10 (17 August 2005)

The movie is nothing but a dummy package. Under the guise of a feigned authenticity - the construction of unreflecting patriotism, tear-jerking worship of heroes, a naive black-and-white portrayal and a pathetic "good against evil" mentality - it does not leave a doubt that only a dead German is a good German. Tom Hanks and the folks gathering around him may do a good job, but still cannot avoid the old cliché: Captain Miller's colorful troop is not much more than the regular bunch of war movie stereotypes who mutate to heroes. Where the Vietnam movies of a Oliver Stone (Platoon) or of a Stanley Kubrick (Full Metal Jacket) mercilessly condemn, do Spielberg's shocking pictures justify all committed atrocities in retrospect. Therefore this movie is rather a tribute to the US World War Veterans, than an anti-war movie. An absolution, which illustrates the horrors of war but not its senselessness. All in all, this is a movie we did not need and we could have done very well without it.