The Patriot (Special Edition)
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Movie Reviews of The Patriot (Special Edition)
Movie Review: AMAZING! Definite Buy
Summary: 5 Stars
Out of all of my Blu-Rays, this is my favorite. Amazing sound and picture quality, and the directors cut brings this one to just under 3 hours in length. A must buy for anyone looking for a great movie!Movie Review: A grand old-fashioned epic
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, I'm going to nail my colors to the mast here: not only do I like Roland Emmerich's The Patriot, but I also think it's also a damn good film, and not just because so many films about the Revolutionary War are so pitifully bad (Revolution, cough cough). While it is driven by the simplistic revenge motif that all American epics seem to need to stand a chance at the box-office, it does give a good sense of the slow progress of the war as it deteriorated from a `civilized' confrontation waged according to the rules of battle to an increasing vicious guerrilla war for survival. The battles are convincingly brutal and for perhaps the first time in a movie it shows how cannonballs were really used - not as explosives but to smash their way through the flesh and bone of the opposing ranks of soldiers.
Yes, it glosses over the real Swamp Fox's racism in favor of an idealized vision of racial harmony and it invents a church-burning incident redolent of old anti-Nazi propaganda films (revenge on Herr Director's part, perhaps?), but it's not quite as simplistic as that. For much of the first half Mel Gibson's character takes no prisoners himself, taking genuine pleasure in killing surrendering British troops until he persuaded to stop more for propaganda reasons than moral ones. Similarly, it points out that this was initially very much a civil war, with colonial settlers divided among themselves over where their loyalties lay (people tend to forget that rather than Americans vs. British, it was British vs. British at that time). Certainly history gets a better deal here than it did in Gibson's own Braveheart. And give it credit for at least not having Gibson stab the bad guy with Old Glory.
Don't use it as a history lesson by any means, though it's not quite the travesty outraged tabloids have implied, but as a lavish, old-fashioned epic, complete with a cast of thousands (even if many of them are digital), glorious widescreen photography and a fine score by John Williams. The theatrical cut boasts a good array of extras, with some featurettes and trailers that were not carried over to the extended cut that is also available.
Movie Review: Great video/audio transfer, and story
Summary: 5 Stars
Another excellent Blu-ray title. It has great video and audio transfer. Both the story line, and the act have the kind of quality you would expect from Mel Gibson. Movie Review: Great Blu-Ray Title
Summary: 5 Stars
As the dreaded format war continues (Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD) I find myself on the Blu-Ray side of the fence because of my purchase of the PS3. I'll be honest, without having purchased the PS3 I would not have adopted either format and would have been content with standard DVD movies.
But now that I have a Blu-Ray player and a 1080p HDTV, I have been hooked and want more. I have been careful in my selection of Blu-Ray Titles, picking up only movies I have yet to watch or great movies that I want to see in HD.
The Patriot did not disappoint. The colors of the movie jump out of the screen and when you can see the fibers flying off of the British soldiers uniforms into the wind as they wait for battle, you know you are watching a great HiDef movie.
Most of the extended scenes do not add to the story and you will understand why they were cut out in the first place.
I've been disappointed in some of the Blu-ray discs I've purchased in the past month, especially when my purchases are the second or third time I will have bought that movie. (VHS, DVD, DVD SE/CE/DC)
But I must say that The Patriot is well worth seeing on Blu-Ray.
Movie Review: Beautiful-Looking DVD Highlights Powerful Story
Summary: 4 Stars
This is "Braveheart" all over again, except instead of mid-whatever-century Scotland and England, it's the United States and the American Revolution. Mel Gibson plays a similarly-heroic person he played in Braveheart but he's still fighting the British, time time as an American patriot "Benjamin Martin."
The cinematography is a high point in this movie, with lots of pretty shots outside and inside. It's just stunning at times. Kudos to cinematographer Caleb Deschanel for a job well done. It's also a terrific audio movie with a lot of surround sound that's impressive, especially when the cannons are shot.
Yes, this is All-American flag-waving which nauseates some but makes most the U.S. citizens happy and it's certainly something one hasn't seen much in films since the 1950s.
Even though it's considered an "epic," I would like to have seen this cut down a bit from 165 minutes which is a tad long. Women beware: this gets a little bloody in parts. It's not as gory as Braveheart, but there is still a good deal of violence.
In all, a powerful story beautifully filmed.