Well-executed, but essentially flawed

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2005)

A visceral and engaging film, with powerful battle scenes, that presents a factually- and emotionally-biased view of the war. It's a polished endeavour, worth watching, but it loses marks because Spielberg just *has* to patronise the audience by showing Ryan as an old man. Had he not done so, I think that the movie would have been far more effective as both a creative endeavour and a moral message.
The film is clearly designed with the American public in mind - there are no British or other Allied forces at all in the movie, and the French civilians and German soldiers are essentially stereotypes. The film itself is both well-scripted and -cast, but I can't help but feel that its protagonists are essentially precisely deployed character-types designed to elicit set emotional responses in the audience. The lack of emotional ambivalence in its story and characters lends a sense of superficiality to the whole affair that makes the picture, in my mind, remarkably forgettable.
I would say that the movie is a fine example of Hollywood product. It has all the necessary elements of a classic film. However, scratch the glossy surface and I think one will find a disappointing lack of depth and a disappointingly familiar lack of respect, on Spielberg's part, for the audience's ability to think for itself.