Review of Full Metal Jacket (1987) by Danielr. — 19 Mar 2009
The first half is some of cinema's most greatest, most funny and most shocking pieces of work yet. Kubrick uses unsettling humour here to test our limits and although a lot of us don't want to laugh at the thought of soldiers-in-training being abused and being referred to as maggots we simply cannot help ourselves as R.
Lee Ermey seems to make it look acceptable with his outstanding performance. After the shock at the end of bootcamp, the film progresses straight to the Vietnam war with those soldiers now in the thick of the action; although the result of this is rather disappointing.
The cast here is faultless but the action and the imagination that we have to come to love of Kubrick is not here in full stretch and although there are still moments of greatness it doesn't come close to the first half.
The ending of this film makes up for the rest of the half however and really is thought provoking stuff. This could've been Kubrick's best but unfortunately cannot add up to the greatness of the director's previous works such as A Clockwork Orange or 2001.
Still worth a watch however and is still one of the best films in the war movie genre if not the best.
This review of Full Metal Jacket (1987) was written by Danielr. on 19 Mar 2009.
Full Metal Jacket has generally received very positive reviews.
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