Pretty to look at; impossible to watch

Rating: 2/10 (7 April 1999)

I know I've seen worse movies than this, but I can't really remember when: lucky for me, I block them out..... When were the guys in this movie gonna shut up? This is the most obvious anti-war movie ever. And that's not good...according to Malick, nobody on either side of the Pacific wanted to be fighting. When he shows us the G.I.s, they look shell-shocked, dogfaced, worn-out; the Japanese look malnourished, brain-damaged, psychotic, like patients from a mental ward. So who was firing the machine guns from the bunkers? Malick never shows their faces as if the men in the bunkers are different from the men killed and captured. And those unrelenting interior monologues!!!! Won't these guys ever shut up??!! Their speech was like poetry, but there was nothing poetic about it: it was like brick upon brick of ironic sameness. Each character, in an effort to express individuality, to break free from the sameness of the platoon, ended up sounding like every other loser. How the hell does Malick expect us to believe these guys won a war? Maybe they didn't win....maybe nobody won....oh, my goodness. War is Hell, and Sgt. Rock said it so much better with fewer words.