Disappointing.

Rating: 2/10 (12 November 2005)

I'm no expert on the Normandy landings, but I know enough to know that the opening scenes of the movie, so highly lauded as realism, were pure hokum. Though there may have been some landing craft whose occupants were slaughtered as the doors opened, and whose few survivors were then further decimated on the beach, less than 10% of those who landed on Omaha Beach were injured or killed. So what was the point of showing the fountains of blood? We know war is hell. Showing it realistically is gruesome enough, without stretching the truth.
The movie went downhill from there. The next three hours were spent tediously watching a single squad of a men walking all around 400 square miles of France asking whether anyone has seen Private Ryan. How ridiculously absurd. Again I must ask, what was the point? It stretched credulity beyond the limit.
I think the biggest reason I was so disappointed in this movie is that it was so highly acclaimed by critics when it was released. I can't imagine why.