Immersive

Rating: 9/10 (3 April 2010)

Spielberg turns out a war movie which is both harrowing and gripping, not to mention being an essay on both the futility of war and also the opposing view that sometimes it is right to embrace that futility.
I don't want to repeat (excessively) many, many other comments, so I'll just say that the two combat sequences which bookend the main narrative are staggeringly visceral and must be the nearest experience to war combat short of being in it. These sequences are astonishingly well staged.
Hanks has never been better, and the rest of the cast is also excellent. But this is Spielberg's film.