THRILL SCALE 1-10
9
HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?
Yes, once, a long time ago
BEST SEQUENCE
The "Ride of the Valkyries" helicopter attack
BEST LINE
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning"
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE
98%
ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS
"Francis Ford Coppola's haunting, hallucinatory Vietnam War epic is cinema at its most audacious and visionary."
IMDB SYNOPSIS
"A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god."
THOUGHTS
- It surprises me, very much, that Apocalypse Now isn't already on the American Film Institute's list of thrilling movies, and that I had to add it as a supplementary film. It's included in the AFI's list of best movies ever, at #28. Nothing to sneeze at, so clearly the AFI does hold it in high regard. Considering the 100 Thrills list includes several other movies about the Vietnam War, I wonder why they couldn't find room for Apocalypse Now as well. I've said my piece about my own personal moral dilemma of viewing war movies as action-packed thrillers, considering the real human lives which were lost, but if one considers The Deer Hunter, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket to be effectively gripping and heart pounding, I think Apocalypse Now is at least as good as those movies, and maybe even superior to all of them
- The movie is chock-full of stunning visuals, definitely deserving its Academy Award for cinematography (it was nominated for eight Oscars, total). The "Ride of the Valkyries" scene is visually striking and probably the most iconic sequence in the movie, but the shot of Martin Sheen rising out of the muddy water, face covered in camouflage paint, is equally memorable. Going into this viewing, my mind kind of boiled Apocalypse Now down to those two very well-known moments, but there really is a whole lot more to this movie as well
- Martin Sheen is great in this, his wide-eyed stare conveying so much. You seldom see him blink. He also has a very intense way of smoking, which he does constantly throughout the whole movie. His voiceover narration is also pretty crucial to the feel of the film
- I liked the way Colonel Kurtz was built up to be an almost mythological figure throughout the movie, and the way Martin Sheen's Captain Willard developed a fascination, if not outright admiration, for him. Famously, when Marlon Brando showed up to play Kurtz, he was about 88 pounds heavier than Coppola expected so Brando was heavily shadowed for his scenes. Ultimately, though, this just added even more to his mystique
- Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall also make the most of their relatively short screen times, putting in some very memorable performances, especially Duvall as Colonel Kilgore. Kilgore is the source of the quote up above, his character instigates the helicopter attack, and Duvall got the only acting Oscar nomination for the movie, with only 11 minutes of screen time
- Finally, much like Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now is available in several different director's cuts. Apocalypse Now Redux came out in 2001, and Apocalypse Now Final Cut in 2019. I decided to watch the original theatrical cut, though, primarily because the online consensus seemed to be that the first cut was the best, and the later versions just extended the movie without really improving it. But if anyone out there feels strongly about one of the later cuts being superior, feel free to share
Up next: It's one of the longest-running movie franchises of all time, with the first movie coming out in 1962 and the most recent one out last year, in 2021. And yet, Goldfinger, the third movie of the James Bond franchise, is the only one on the AFI's list (perhaps understandably, since there's a strong consensus that it's also the best). So up next, at #71, is Goldfinger. But after that, let's spend a little more time with 007. I declare this the December of James Bond, with GoldenEye coming next (haven't seen), then Casino Royale (have seen) and finally Skyfall (haven't seen)
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