The Great War

Terrible. First "battle"-scene: Soldiers supposed to storm an enemy position basically jog lazily along the top of the trenches, in daylight, no cover smoke or anything, only waiting to get cut down one by one by a german "machine gunner" who obviously never held anything even slightly resembling a machine gun in his entire life, shaking an trembling stupidly in an attempt to make us believe he is experiencing recoil (he is even totally out of sync with the actual fire rate as we hear it). All the uniforms and all the equipment look brand new and unused, even after the men wearing them get shot to pieces and blown up by "mortar shells" (impact blast radius: 2 meters). No visible injuries or blood, except for when the director obviously mid-battle remembers that there must be some, so the surprisingly and consistently boring camera angle suddenly shows some hands and feet neatly spread out on the ground. The soldiers say things like "they´re tearing us to pieces" and "not a place I would like to stay for very long". An US officer is supposed to freak out and lose it in the face of battle, but when one of the black soldiers (yes, they are the heroes in this story) hit him in the face twice, he snaps out of it and seems completely fine going forward. All forgotten now thanks to the slaps. (What makes everything even more annoying, is that the guy playing the officer does a really good job. It must feel bitter having to waste your talent on this arrogant trash production.) You get the idea. Don´t waste a minute on this. I feel like I´m watching some mob money laundering project where everyone basically just wants to get the hole production overwith and go back to what ever they´re doing in real life.

This movie is just the worst. copying things from saving private ryan and band of brothers, horrible depiction of anything resembling war or humans for that matter, bad acting, the absolute worst directing, and although ive seen zane (especially) and perlman in some really awful movies, this one im sure was embarrassing for them. you will become stupider for having watched this movie

While this story is an important one that needs to be told, it's just a bad movie all around. The dialogue is hackneyed and trite. The uniforms look too clean and intact, the sets look like they're for a high school play, the acting is weak and wooden, and the whole thing reeks of an amateur production.

This is like a film that someone with a few thousand dollars made with his friends in a local park. Plus, the blatant ripoffs of Saving Private Ryan are obvious.

I really tried to keep watching and wanted to like it, but it was just so bad.

I gave this movie a decent rating for the the subject matter that is rarely addressed in this conflict, and the I believe, period correct uniforms and weps, but the execution left a lot to be desired. The enlisted personnel were borderline insubordinate in their dialogue with the officers. Especially, when Sgt. Perry first met Cpt. Rivers and he informed the sergeant of his mission.The battle scenes were some of the clearest and cleanest I have ever seen in a war movie. No blood, no shell casings, no debris, no smoke, no mud, no rats, nor rotting bodies in the trenches...there was even a scene where the machine gun feed belt stopped moving but the gun kept on spitting out bullets.. a technique that we have yet to duplicate in today's weapons. And, of course, the reconciliation of the races before the climatic battle scene....Cpt Rivers why are you digging foxholes while the black privates are standing around pretending to be perimeter guards a few feet away? The "fix bayonets" charge reminds of Jeff Daniels' boys in "Gettysburg". And yes, "Saving Private Ryan" theme music dances in my head after the battle is over and during the Captain's final scene (he even sits in a similar position as Tom Hanks). If you gonna imitate, imitate the best! Nice try and worth a watch.

Just skip the positive reviews, reading those for this movie is just a waste of time, actually just like watching this movie, just don't bother as there are tons of better war movies. The acting isn't good at all, below average, mediocre at best. The two names Ron Perlman and Billy Zane are just poster fillers, they have minor roles. But besides the acting it's the story that is really poorly executed, maybe it could have been something with a good director and better actors, but in this case it's pretty lame. The fighting scenes are just ridiculous, it just feels like somebody was filming a bad reenactment of a battle in the woods, or filming his friends playing paintball or so. If any of those characters would have served in the war they would be dead after one second. Just skip this movie, trust me it's not worth your time.