Decent war movie but it doesn't do anything new

Rating: 6/10 (8 December 2017)

I was curious about this movie because it's one of the more "recent" Vietnam movies so I wanted to see if it brought anything new to the table that the classic movies did not.
The movie opens with a French patrol in Vietnam in 1954, the final year of the First Indochina war. The French patrol is overrun by the Viet Minh forces and the commander order to "kill all they send, and they will stop coming". We fast forward 11 years when the United States is fighting the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) arrives with his family and is very dedicated to training his troops in preparation to be sent to battle. He will be leading a newly created air cavalry unit (flying troops and supplies in with helicopters) into the Ia Drang Valley. Moore only has 395 men at his disposal and soon learn that the enemy has much more men. Vastly outnumbered, will the astounding leadership qualities and stubborn determination of Moore be enough to survive the coming onslaught?
Overall I enjoyed this movie, but not tremendously. The war action was very good, the acting and portrayal of the characters was decent and at times it gave me the feeling of being in the heat of the battle. But it started really slow, the first 40 minutes were not very interesting and although it did setup some story arcs, overall it could be much shorter or be made more exciting. In my opinion they tried to hard with focusing on the families of the soldiers. I understand that they wanted to show how the women left behind would react to the bad news but it didn't work for me, I think they should have stayed with the battle the whole movie.
And where most classic Vietnam movies focus on the insanity of war and the dehumanization, this movie sometimes looks like a commercial to join the army. There were a bit to many "I'm glad I died for my country" moments and it lacked emotional torment of the characters. On the other hand they did a fine job showing the Vietnam troops as real people and not as nameless monsters.
Overall it is a decent movie but it doesn't do anything new and doesn't hold a candle to the classic Vietnam movies like Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.