If you’ve never seen this before, it’s not the end of the world, although I would be surprised if you haven’t seen clips from it. My brother and I have seen the sergeant rants before on YouTube, so I didn’t come into this movie having not seen any of it, just not most of it.
The movie centers around the experience of Private “Joker” Davis and his comrades-in-arms. It introduces us to the beginning of military training and brings in tons of humor by showing us one of the most hopeless individuals fail at nearly every task put in front of him. The reprimanding of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is hilarious, although I had seen most of it so many times that it lost most of its comedic jab for me. That didn’t downgrade the score at all, I’m just saying that it does eventually lose most of its comedic effect if you view it enough times. It’s not one of those movies where you can watch it hundreds of times and still laugh at it.
The problem I had with this is a simple one, one that the filmmakers should have recognized as a major flaw. After a significant plot twist, the film takes us to Vietnam with Private Joker but without any of the other characters that we have just gotten to know and/or grow fond of. The movie presents some above-average military comedy but then decides to drop all of the characters and start from scratch all over again, leaving Private Joker as the only known element. It decides to turn into an action movie instead of a comedy half way through and the action isn’t all that engaging or suspenseful. It’s like two movies thrown together instead of one complete product. If they would have given us something that involved all of the characters we started with, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a screw-up. However, that’s not the case, making it just that.
Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.
90-100 It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Iron Man 3, World War Z, 42, Just Go With It, Real Steel)
80-89 It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (White House Down, Jobs, The Truman Show, The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)
70-79 It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (The Usual Suspects, 21 Jump Street, Escape Plan, Captain America: The First Avenger, Dawn of the Dead)
60-69 It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (Pacific Rim, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Disaster Movie)
50-59 This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (Total Recall, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Along Came Polly, Aliens, Alien Resurrection)
40-49 This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Patriot Games, The Great Gatsby, Pitch Black, Alien)
30-39 Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30’s ironically define the 1930’s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (The Contract, Pride and Prejudice)
20-29 What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (The Sum of All Fears, Thor: The Dark World)
0-19 Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (Midnight Cowboy, Dark Fury, Alien 3)
My score for Full Metal Jacket: 53.
I didn’t need to watch this. I’d already seen the parts of the movie that were worth watching and taking them into account, is the only thing that made this movie even slightly interesting.
*SPOILER ALERT* IF YOU DON’T WANT THE MOVIE SPOILED, STOP READING!!!
*SPOILER’S EDITION*
There’s really nothing to spoil aside from the fact that Pyle kills Hartman in a psychotic rage and then kills himself on the toilet. Aside from that, that’s about it. Really nothing of any importance to discuss.
wordsofwistim 