Everything That's Wrong With Hollywood Today

Rating: 3/10 (17 June 2002)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Just saw this last night, and my God, was this awful! I went into this one with extremely high hopes, being a die-hard John Woo fan, not to mention a casual Nicolas Cage fan as well. I walked out of this movie seething with disappointment and rage. How could it have gone so horribly wrong? It had everything it needed to be good - an interesting story, a great director, a good cast, a killer trailer, and a fair amount of good buzz. How then, could it have gone so wrong?
Where to begin about this film's faults? Perhaps it's the length. Perhaps it's the needless, pointless, illogical romance between Nicolas Cage and the Hawaiian nurse (who's name I'm not even sure we were told). Perhaps it's the weak battle scenes.
That last sentence is perhaps what bothered me the most about this film. Like I've already said - I'm a die-hard John Woo fan. As most film fans know, John Woo is the penultimate action director - if you don't believe me, check out Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2, The Killer, Hard Boiled or A Better Tomorrow. Those films all had memorable action sequences that blew the viewer away. The action in Windtalkers was a step below the kind of trash that Michael Bay makes. Take any of the so-called "epic" battle scenes in Windtalkers, after leaving the theater, could you even remember any of them? The only thing I remember was stock footage used during what could have been a balls-to-the-wall naval to land battle. Another problem I had with the battle scenes was that they were too fast and too muddled. I couldn't tell who was killed and who wasn't. In every scene it seemed as though every Marine was being blown away, yet when the smoke cleared, there was still a tremendous amount left.
Another problem was the amount of cliches used in this movie. Now I know that cliches are in every movie, regardless of what we wish to believe, but this film in particular was loaded with the most I've seen in a long time. You could see what was going to happen ninety minutes before it happened. ***SPOILER ALERT*** Also, after watching the trailers and reading up on this film, who didn't know that Nicolas Cage was going to die protecting his Navajo Codetalker? ***SPOILER ALERT*** The only surprise -- albeit a mild one at that -- was the death of Christian Slater and his Codetalker. But by the time this happened, I was too bored and inattentive to even care.
The characters in this film were so cardboard and uninteresting that it's not even funny. Take the moronic racist who has a change of heart halfway through the film. Take the cowardly Greek who gets some sort of courage towards the end. Take Nicolas Cage who starts out a bitter, world-weary veteran who's been through hell and lived to tell about it (yawn), who gets a second outlook on life after spending time with and getting to like his Codetalker. Take Christian Slater who kept popping in and out of the movie so much, that I almost forgot he was even in the film. I am aware that war movies are all cliched and slightly cheesy, but c'mon, didn't Saving Private Ryan teach Hollywood something? At least in that film we had characters whom he cared about, and were generally distraught when they died. Who didn't almost tear up as Tom Hanks lay dying?
Finally, my last complaints about this film was the moronic training montage. Everybody knows that montages should show gradual progression throughout a few minutes of quick cuts and dissolves. Hell, even South Park did a frickin' song about it! How then, are we supposed to buy the bull-[expletive deleted] training sequence that's supposed to show us how the two Codetalkers are so smart? They only show them getting two questions correct! That's right -- TWO QUESTIONS!!! Sweet mama pajama, is that not insane? Christ, the movie was long anyways, what would another five minutes of clarity hurt?
All in all this was a bad movie that I would not recommend to anyone. This stinker is right up there with Pearl Harbor as one of the most moronic and pathetic war movies ever made. I'm giving this one a higher score since it's not as long as the bladder busting Pearl Harbor, but story and content wise, they're both equally bad. Also, I pray that the reason this film was so bad was because of studio interference. I hope that John Woo has not lost it and become yet another hack. I guess only time will truly tell.
Out of a possible * * * *, I'm going to have to give this one a *.