OT: War Movie Review/Recommendation Thread

[Matt Wiser]

Don't even mention the remake. When John Milius said that he wouldn't have anything to do with it, and none of the remaining original cast wouldn't either, it was doomed. And that was before MGM held it up, had the changes to please the PRC (to avoid being banned from the PRC movie market-the original premise was the Chinese as the invaders, not NK), trimmed it from two hours to 97 minutes, and so on....when my GF and I came out of the theater, we said "That's $17.00 and 97 minutes we'll never get back".

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Battleground, 1949.

A WWII movie made when WWII movies were not en vogue. It depicts a fictional Airborne Glider Infantry unit in the line at Bastogne. What is so fascinating about it is, if you have read Band of Brothers or D-Day, you come to realize how factual it is: the Glider Infantry Regiment is in the same area of operations that Easy Company was in real life, and many of the stories of the fictional Battleground are related as factual events in Ambrose's books, and not just the broad ones like the famous "Nuts!" declaration to the Germans' demand for surrender.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by RN7

I liked the new Dredd which was far better than Stallone's version back in the 90's and I used to read 2000AD when I was younger. There is some talk about a sequal. I think the original Robocop on the other hand was just better in every way than the new one.

I liked the new one a lot. I thought it did quite a good job of capturing the way Dredd was in 2000AD much of the time - he wasn't on an epic mission to save Mega City 1, it was just a normal day in his life. And he kept his helmet on.

Originally Posted by stormlion1

The remake of Red Dawn had issues, but its one of them films where if you can just ignore the fact its a remake, its not so bad.

I thought it was terrible.

Been a while since I last saw it, but one of the best War films I've ever seen is a Korean one called Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_%28film%29

(Obviously link has spoilers)

Well worth a look.

[Tombot]

For the oldschool-MadMax-Gang: Kyuss & Mel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYpeA0Jm98k

[Sanjuro]

Testament of Youth.

Beautifully shot, well acted by a cast who were convincingly close to the age of the historical characters (typically 18-22). Historically accurate in many ways, even for shots no more than 5 seconds long. Very true to the book, with only minor conflating of characters and events.

Having said all that, I didn't enjoy a single minute of it. Google Vera Brittain and you will understand.

[Raellus]

Come and See is a Russian movie released in 1985, about a partisan recruit in 1943 Belorussia. I'm not sure what it's viewing availability is, but I rented it from Netflix on DVD (disc 1 of a Criterion Collection set).

In some ways, Come and See plays like an art film. The dialogue is sparing and there's no major battle scenes. The film focusses on the war's impact on civilians. The final act is pretty brutal, although very little gore is shown. The lead actor- a teenager- has the most intense shocked face I've ever seen. It's not a typical war movie, but it's worth checking out. Just don't expect to see much combat during its 2-hour and 20-minute run time.

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[pmulcahy11b]

One of my favorites, which the Military Channel is currently showing about one a week lately, is the WW1 movie The Lost Battalion. It's World War 1, but has a kind of T2K feel, in the circumstances involved in the fight.