Review of Full Metal Jacket (1987) by Spangle — 11 Jul 2014

A very brutal film, but what war film is not brutal? Though, this one is certainly brutal in many different ways as it did a great job developing its characters. Many war films go for action rather than character development, but here, we got a bit of both and really became connected to the soldiers.

This connection made the events here all the more tragic and hard to watch. The acting here is great, especially from R. Lee Ermey, who really steals the show. Stanley Kubrick's direction is fabolous as expected as well.

The first half here is also far superior to the second half, in large part thanks to Ermey, but really, all of the events in the first half are much better presented than the second half, which at times, can be a little odd in the way things occur.

But, the second half is still quite good, even if a little bit of a drop off from the perfect first half. Overall, Full Metal Jacket is a very good film that presents the trauma faced by soldiers in war very well and while no war film is completely unique, this one takes familiar elements and improves upon them.