Too Much Prison, Not Enough Mission

Rating: 5/10 (20 August 2005)

I'd have liked this movie more had it focused on the tremendous mission, rather than the prisoners. As such, I found it to drag.
I don't need to see atrocities by the Japanese six times to know that they are the bad guys here. Okay, I get it already.
The action scenes are great, but only for the six or seven minutes they are on screen. Had it been more about the great difficulties and dangers that those rescuers overcame, I'd have been more immersed. After all, it was called the Great RAID, not the Great Imprisonment, and so I had that expectation.
So a little less Schindler's List / Papillon was needed. You can't make a movie in the vein this wanted to be without forcing comparisons to those two classics, and this movie is not engaging in that capacity. It needed a little more Band of Brothers.
The fictionalized love interest to me didn't belong in a true story. In fact, the entire resolution of that plot line was unfulfilling and a letdown. I could be wrong about its veracity but it seemed like they took some facts and tried to mold it into that part of the story... please leave that for Sightings on the Sci-Fi Channel. Stick to what really happened.
Indeed, every part of the movie that was true was exciting. Every part they had to make up was trite or boring.