Badly made, Boring, but the philosophy is there.

Rating: Null/10 (14 March 1999)

The movie industry of the 90's will be famous for one thing: Making novels look bad on screen. Unfortunately this is yet another novel whose on screen much hyped version fails to impress or entertain. A very hollywoodine aspect of war is presented, with bad acting, no realism, and empty scenes and deadly boring dialogs, which even manage to bury the great philosophy behind the film. Although calling itself a war drama, war scenes are actually a small portion of this movie. Furthermore, it has absolutely no plot whatsoever - it's much too slow-paced and lasts too long while saying little.
The music is something weird... Although the score is great, one would often find it misplaced - double bass as a background to a battle? That's a good one.
We're also being shown to a couple of birds or the nearby nature every couple of minutes... Can't say, it's beautiful, but considering those parrots stayed on screen more than Travolta and Clooney, we could as well give it a Best Documentary Oscar nomination too.
If you have seen Saving Private Ryan (SPR), do not expect to be impressed; both the realism of war as well as the extent of emotions triggered by watching SPR exceed what the Thin Red Line manages to give even with such a wonderful cast.
What disturbs me the most, is that the potential had been there all along... the idea is great! The promises of another parallel world, which he finds destroyed before his own world is destroyed as well through his death - it's definitely good grounds for drama. But... bad approach. Instead it was such a bore that half the theater fled before an hour had passed.
Make no mistake - this is the critic wannabe's and the pseudo-intellectual's feast, as one other reviewer said.