The start of the movie is actually the climax

Rating: Null/10 (9 October 1999)

Well..watched this one and I have to say that the first part of the movie on Omaha beach is pretty, pretty intensive. Can you say intensive? My eyes reached their information processing-limit.
However, after this, the movie just wanders off and becomes a 'feel-good' story, where a couple of soldiers find themselves hopping all over Normandy in search of a guy called Ryan.
We see lots of American flags, heroism, shabby dialogue, a miscast Tom Hanks (I kept picturing Bubba next to him, telling him about shrimping) and of course bad front jokes.
As for the US-centered approach..it's understandable. Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange was centered around Dutchmen as well, even though lots of other countries participated in the (entire) war. British warmovies focus on Brits. And so on.
All in all, not an awfully bad movie to watch but not the ultimate classic it was portrayed to be. For that, we still have to go to Apocalypse now or Full Metal Jacket.