Lots of Problems

Rating: 3/10 (25 December 1998)

There has been a lot of Oscar buzz surrounding this movie for quite some time now. After seeing this movie, I can say that the buzz is completely undeserved. The biggest problem with this movie is that it does not have any character development. Without that, the audience don't care for the characters. It just leaves this movie with pretty bird shots. If you look at the scene where Jack (I think it is him) gets a letter from his wife. It should be even a little emotional but since you there was no character development, you just don't care. Secondly, The story seems needs to be streamlined. It seems if the screenplay was just a chopped down version of the book. Also the birds shots, grass shots,etc, need to be edited out. If you put some in there it gives the movie atmosphere, but if you rely on it, it just gets annoying. Overall I think it was a waste of 3 hours. If you want to see a war movie, see "Saving Private Ryan". The first 20 minutes of that film is better than all of this film.