Roland Emmerich Strikes Again.. AHHHH Take COVER!!

Rating: Null/10 (17 December 2002)

The GOD of making big-budget money makers is back again.. After making 3 titles that are so overly Hollywood it makes you puke (ID4, Godzilla, Stargate), this guy decided to pay Mel Gibson tons of money to do his version of Braveheart set in the times of the Revolutionary War. If your sick of movies that rely on lame/cliche'd character development, mushy dialogue, and sub-par stories coupled with amazing set design, special effects, music, and all that jazz, then by all means avoid this, and any other film that Emmerich has ever directed. However, if this sort of thing floats your boat.. then by all means buy this on DVD.. crank up your subwoofer, sit back and enjoy the ride.
The battle scenes are fantastic but short, movie trailoresque scene cuts that you wish were just a tad bit longer. The long ones are rip-offs of Robin Hood: Prince of Theves and Last of the Mohicans. Little skirmishes of a band of rebels stopping the british while they mosey down the road while riding and guarding a carriage filled with the king's goods. Even the hatchet moves that Gibson uses.. all right out of the first battle in Mohicans.. right down to the "throwing the axe in the victim's back while he runs away from you" scene. This coupled with the usual montage scenes that Hollywood often uses, gives you that been there done that feeling. Let's try something new, OK?
I wanna see battle scenes that last 15 minutes at a time. I want the ship scene in the end to be the entire climax of it.. to go on in the background while Mel Gibsin cuts the heck out of the badguy redcoat. I wanna see not just one of his sons, but the little girl and the maid-servants get killed also. Shove him down a really deep, dark hole that he'll never get out of emotionaly. Show us the WAR!! Don't show us Hollywood fluff! When Mel uses the hatchet on the redcoat while he's rescuing his son, and hacks away at him over and over again.. I wanna see the guys face when he does it.. and the Conanesque blood splirts on the camera lense. Make it raw, like your there. Get rid of the usual colonial speaches. We can see all of that stuff at Colonial Williamsburg and tours in DC. Let's just get right down to the chase.. and give us our money's worth! War films should be war films.. not dramas highlighted by battles.
I don't want the redcoats to be the usual stereotyped, civilized Brits. I want to see the rebelious redcoat have the shakes.. like Michael Beihn in "The Abyss" I want him to grip his pistol.. to see his arm shuddering and the sweat dripping off his forehead when he shoots Mel's son in the back. I want him to gradually become more and more psychotic as the film carries on.. to the point where you connect with him from the british point of view.. NOT just from the American point of vew. We see this all the time. The brits are just the badguys here, not real characters in the story. Yeah they are badguys, but they are real people as well. Show them as real people!!
Mel Gibson plays a dark role.. SHOW me how dark he can be! Don't show him as a hero of the day getting bloody. I wanna see the Martin Riggs of the revolutionary war. A psycho.. the kind of guy who if you see walking down the street.. you stand away from because his mere essense scares the crap out of you. I want this to be a dark film, not the overly glorified Hollywood patriotic dribble. We can have the patriosm with the war.. not just one or the other. Let's do it and do it right!!
This film gets a 5 out of 10.