Battle for Saipan

Perhaps I should've known better when I saw Casper's name in the cast list... Obviously low budget but there have been lots of good movies made on a shoestring Inaccuracies and anachronisms abound... From plastic buckles on the military gear, to wrong uniforms... having to burn "sensitive documents" which are obviously photocopies... The script is poorly written, the story is weak (while, given the events described, it did not have to be.) The sets are poorly designed, as are the special effects (i.e. Gore, explosions, etc.) Please, spare yourself the pain of my experience watching this, you, undoubtedly, have much better options available to you.

I figured that this wasn't going to be a particularly great war movie, but I still opted to sit down and watch what writer and director Brandon Slagle had to offer.

And let's just say that if you opt to skip on "Battle for Saipan" on account of the premise of the synopsis and/or the cast ensemble, then you're not missing out on anything great here. Yeah, "Battle for Saipan" wasn't exactly in the same league with something like "Saving Private Ryan".

In fact, the storyline told in "Battle for Saipan" was pretty simplistic, almost to the point of being amateurish. So this wasn't exactly a golden moment in war cinema. Sure, it was watchable, but this was hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing. And that single viewing is somewhat of an ordeal to sit through in itself.

The movie starts out by stating that the battle that took place at Saipan was referred to as the D-Day of the Pacific. Well, strap yourself in firmly, because the movies utterly fails at depicting this in any sense, be it visually, action-wise, sheer number of soldiers present, well, you name it. Yeah, director Brandon Slagle delivered a movie that felt like it was recorded at an old abandoned building at some rundown farmstead. It didn't feel or look like anything from World War II.

What did work for "Battle for Saipan" was the costumes and the weapons though, as they looked authentic enough. And yeah, that definitely helped to keep the movie afloat.

I have to say that the likes of Casper Van Dien, Louis Mandylor and Jeff Fahey usually make adequate enough movies, but they had nothing to work with in "Battle for Saipan", and it was clearly showing on the screen.

If you enjoy World War II movies, then you might get a bit of a kick out of whatever transpires on the screen in "Battle for Saipan", but don't get your hopes up.

My rating of "Battle for Saipan" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

This must be a joke for sure.

There is nothing that just slightly resembles war or ww2 or even a war-movie. Amateur reenactors would do better.

The story is a great collection of ridiculous clichés, un-natural characters, stupid conversations.

First I was not able to watch it after the first half, but I forced myself and returned to see the similarly unexplainable second half.

Please don't do it, it's even worse than the beginning.

The makers have clearly no idea of anything.

Do yourself a favor and leave this movie out of your life, does not worth the few minutes to fast forward it through!

Maybe it was a bet?

Maybe it was a dare?

Maybe it was a a favour?

Maybe somebody's eight year old and his pals got together and wrote a script and all these other people decided to take the easy money?

Maybe the studio needed a loser for tax purposes?

Maybe Casper and Jeff needed something on their resumes to distract from something else?

Maybe reading these reviews is time better spent and considerably more entertaining than watching this inconceivably, incomprehensibly poorly executed motion picture?

Maybe some viewers have amazingly low standards and were never exposed to anything better, and so write 10 star reviews and chide everyone else for recognizing and writing about what a steaming pile this dead turkey is?

Maybe I really had to struggle to find enough things to meet the character limit, and at no point could I dredge up anything positive or redeeming to say?

Every male actor a hunk, every female actor a model. Then we get to the story; 'based on real events'. Yeah, very loosely. Casting should have been fired way before a camera was hired.

It just has that 80's made for TV feel, yup, worse than The A-Team, that bad. The dialogue is awful, the acting far too intense in the minor moments. Sometimes less is more, guys.

Of course the Japanese just throw themselves at machine guns like they were never trained in the basics. Of course the GI's are so proficient at unarmed combat. The Japanese would never have any idea about Karate or Jiu Jitsu. How could they despite inventing it?

Really not good in any way. Have the production team bigged this up on review sites? Mmmm?