retold, in substandard quality.

Rating: Null/10 (5 October 2004)

It seems as if, in an attempt to make the well known battle of the Alamo new and refreshing, director Hancock has taken out the very things that made the story of the Alamo such a classic. For one, there is absolutely no character development in the entire movie, and the viewer feels no emotional attachment to any of the characters. For an action movie, the action scenes seemed to be extremely brief and repetitive: fire the cannons, duck from the cannon shot, fire the muskets, duck from the musket shot. Even in the final battle of the Alamo seemed anticlimactic and brief itself. The addition of Sam Houston's defeat of Santa Anna at San Jacinto was a nice touch to give the movie a more positive ending, but seemed to stretch the movie to an even more anti-climatic level and made you "forget" the Alamo.
However, the Alamo did present a somewhat new look at the battle with the unorthodox deaths of the main characters, none of which went in a blaze of glory except for maybe Crockett. This adds a disappointing, but more realistic spin on the way wars go. The focus on Sam Houston's part of the story allows the viewer a broader perspective than other Alamo movies do.
This version of the Alamo is decent, but can in no way compare to the 1960 version, which is crammed full of epic battle sequences, extraordinary character development, great scenes, and a thrilling climax. I would rate this with the other action flicks of this time, such as King Arthur. It has such potential, but seems to fall short of a classic.