Hundreds of young men are immediately torn apart by a spay of relentlessly pounding German lead. Many spill out of the boats to drown in bloody brine. Arms and legs are smashed away by enemy fire. Intestines spill out across the sand. A comrade's face is shot through the back of his splintered skull.
Sea water turns red as the corpses continue to pile up.
With no way to retreat, Captain Hanks and his trusty sidekick Sgt. Tom Sizemore have no alternative but to charge up that impossible hill and somehow kill every German they can before they're killed themselves. Speilberg experimented successfully in roving and jiggling camera techniques to sell the dino roundup sequence in The Lost World , and the same techniques pay off a thousand fold here. Coupled with an outstanding sound mix that puts you deep within a maze of speeding bullets, the whole sequence is a concerto of shocks and thrills. After this, the simple plot is introduced.