Horrid film, an embarrassment to all involved. Shows just how great the 1960 John Wayne epic was.

Rating: 1/10 (9 June 2007)

The less said about this film the better. It forms a kind of ironic bookend with the Wayne widescreen classic epic, "the Alamo," from 1960. The Wayne film was, in my view, the greatest movie of all time; look up the comments of Oscar-winning directors George Stevens and John Huston if you need evidence. This "Billy Bob" version is the worst of all time. The Wayne film is fondly remembered for its incredible battle scenes, particularly the death scenes of the Alamo's legendary "big three" heroes, Davy, Bowie and Travis; its emotion, the line-in-the-sand scene, for example; its cast, Wayne, Widmark, and Harvey were incredible and deserved Oscar's; and its haunting film score by Dimitri Tiomkin setting a standard for modern classical music. You can't say Alamo without hearing "the Green Leaves of Summer" or the Deguello in your mind. By contrast, this Billy Bob version is just awful -- no action, no drama, no stars, no film score, and the film was shot in the dark. Photography 101 is highly recommended before opening the camera lens. The Billy Bob film reduces Wayne's film's cast of "thousands" to a cast of "tens." I shut off my DVD of the BB version at the point Billy Bob as Davy warned the Mexicans after his capture that he was "a screamer." I am told the movie went on for another half-hour. Ugh. I tossed the DVD of Billy Bob's Alamo in the trash and immediately viewed the 1960 classic to get the Billy Bob version out of my head. To paraphrase Tiomkin's "Ballad of the Alamo" from the 1960 film, "Let the legend of the 1960 classic grow and grow." Thank you, John Wayne.