Review of The Great Escape (1963) by Raven D — 28 Jan 2018

An almost strictly technical movie. Clocking in at almost 3 hours, I´ll admit to fast-forwarding from the hour 50 minutes mark. I know this is unacceptable, but I just couldn't endure any longer. I never do this, but having it recorded and seeing that it lasted 2 hours 50 minutes, I honestly felt like I was just wasting time by watching all of it in normal speed.

I had heard good things and wanted to see the Steve McQueen bike moves, but honestly I found it an incredibly overlong, boring, mechanical movie. It got kind of interesting near the end, when the escapees split up and we see what happens to each of them, but I just didn't feel, at any point in the movie, that I was watching a great movie, a classic.

The cast is great. McQueen plays the renegade loner hero perfectly, but that's not necessarily saying he acted great. It just comes so naturally to him. I liked Donald Pleasance, and Bronson looks great, but I wasn't impacted significantly by anyone of them...Oh but the guy falling through the beds was excellent, I laughed out loud at that. In short, this is another of those movies that you're basically told to love and consider a classic, but when you just sit down and watch it objectively...meh.