Apocalypse Now Redux on DVD (1979)

Imran Saiyed from London, England , 06/06/2004

Even though I think the original film has been diluted due to the expansion of the Brando and Sheen characters, and with the addition of even more surreal and maybe slightly contrived stop-offs for the riverboat crew, there's no denying that rarely in the relatively short history of director's cuts has there been such an exciting expansion of a classic movie like there has been in Redux. I'm still not sure which version I prefer but I am one hundred percent sure the extra scenes were worth seeing. An absolute must for fans of the original.

  25 out of 31 people found this review helpful

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A customer from Leamington England , 08/12/2003

It is difficult to tell whether this 2001 reissue of one of Coppola?s great movies is a cynical attempt to cash in on the current craze for ?director?s cuts? or a genuine attempt by Coppola to improve on his 1979 movie.

Coppola?s original version of Apocalypse Now was darkly surreal. The misty river, purple smoke, red banners, burning napalm, the fantastic light show at the Do Long bridge, casual brutality, sudden death, insane characters or rather characters behaving in an insane manner: the whole film was like a medieval vision of hell. It made an enormous impact on many viewers and critics alike.

In the 2001 Redux Coppola claimed that he was giving the film a much rounder tone, filling out the characters. Personally I don?t think he does, he diminishes the characters and adds nothing to the tone of the film. The three major additions, the Playboy bunnies in the Medevac camp, the French plantation owners and the added footage of Kurtz slow the film down, detract from the characters, in fact certainly in the case of Brando as Kurtz they diminish his mystery and therefore his stature. The purchase of sex for fuel also diminishes Willard?s character; instead of a burnt out but relentless assassin he becomes just A.N. Other soldier acting out his time.

  14 out of 17 people found this review helpful

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A customer from Chiswick, UK , 15/09/2003

I don't know how this extended version compares to the original, which i've never seen, but i'm glad I saw this first. It's hard to describe this movie, but 'hallucinatory' probably sums it up best. While it begins in a fairly conventional manner, with Martin Sheen's disturbed soldier being sent on an ambiguous mission to find the mysterious Colonel Kurtz, as the film progresses it never stops getting stranger. The visuals are lush, and coupled with an amazing soundtrack they conjure a pervasive atmosphere of dislocation, with numerous stand-alone segments which offer surreal vignettes from an already abnormal backdrop of war. It seems pointless to single out moments, as it's the film taken in it's entirety that creates such a lasting impression; i'm not sure i fully understand everything it presented to me, but I don't think i'll ever forget it.

  15 out of 22 people found this review helpful

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david thompson-curran from Manchester,uk , 02/09/2004

Francis Ford Coppalla's original cut of Apocalypse Now was a genuine masterpiece. What was he thinking of? The Redux version's additional scenes add nothing to it's original cut, indeed they destroy the mood and pace of the film. I thoroughly recommend the original to anyone,if they can still find a copy,and if you have to see the out takes, then watch Mrs.Coppolla's excellent documentary 'heart of darkness',

  20 out of 35 people found this review helpful

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JohnnyX from Bristol , 11/08/2008

Imagine that you were watching a film where a person takes a chiken's egg out of a fridge, boils it for 4 mins in boiling water, transfers it into a cup, decapitates it, dips bread soldiers into its yolk and eats it for breakfast. What an appalling, horrific and an insightful would such a film be ! You would be watching an evryday analogy of 'Apocolypse Now' ! Most fimls, including war films, take such trivial things for granted, and concentrate upon 'higher values', this film draws our attention towards these trivial things. In truth, Kurtz is a minor problem assigned to a minor agent to eliminate. You do the same thing when you buy a bottle of Domestos. There is nothing profound in any of this, and the 'horror' which Kurtz refers to before he dies is simply the common, illusonary horror of existence. One cannot deal with this by being a vegetarian, since vegetables are living things in just the same way as animals are living things. One just has to accept the realities of existence, and concentrate upon higher values. Apocolypse Now is a pretty ordinary war film; the river voyage is too long and the examination of Kurtz's frame of mind is too superficial, and these are not the only faults of this film. I have met several people who think that this film is the best film ever made, but I beleive that such people are seriously deranged. The importance of this film is an illusion and it has nothing to do with the real problems of human existence. These problems and their solution lie in a completely different direction.

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