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Apocalypse Now Redux DVD Review by Yanman |
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“You smell that? Do you smell that? ...Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” How long does a movie have to be to be considered an epic? Well I can tell you this at over three hours and twenty minutes; Apocalypse Now Redux is one for sure. This is not the movie that was show in theaters in 1979 however; this is all that and forty-nine minutes more, with deleted scenes added back in by Director Francis Ford Coppola for a re-release to theaters earlier this year. If you want to see it with out the added scenes (DVD chapters 5,6,10,11,12,13,16,18,20,24,25,26,27,and 32) you could just skip them, but we feel that is a much stronger (not just longer) picture with them intact. The all-star cast here includes the likes of Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper, and even a fourteen-year-old Laurence Fishburne. Nominated for 8 Academy Awards this is a classic and compelling story of the Vietnam. Rather then try to go into details, suffice it to say that if you like epic war stories, which require more then just a bit of thought, you will like Apocalypse Now Redux. Twenty-plus-year-old films rarely fare very well on our audio and video ratings scale, and this one is no exception. While better then its VHS counterparts from days gone by, there is still quite a bit of grain and dirt here. Still the anamorphic widescreen picture looks better then any other way we have seen the film. While the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack is extremely enveloping, we still have the nerve to ask for more; this one would sound great in THX EX, DTS, or DTS ES, don’t you think? When you add 49 minutes of deleted scenes back into a almost 2 and a half hour film, there probably isn’t a lot more left on the cutting room floor. Still there must have been one or two other extras that could have been included here. And there just isn’t anything. Could it be that they didn’t want to add a second disc? Maybe, but that begs the question, “Will there be another, longer, 2-disc, with lots of extras, special edition, some time in the future”? Well we just don’t know, but we wouldn’t rule that out.\ War is hell. And moves about war tend to be long and dramatic. If that is the type of film you are looking for Apocalypse Now Redux is the movie you are looking for, Week stomachs (and tender behinds) need not apply. Got run surfs up…
This DVD was reviewed on Yanman.com's Reference Theater #1, using a Toshiba SD-5109 DVD player, Toshiba TW56X81, and M&K 750 THX Speakers. Panamax protects all systems at Yanman.com. |
Apocalypse Now Redux "a much stronger (not just longer) picture " Staring: Marlon Brando Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola Running time: 202 Min. |
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