Apocalypse Now

One line review: Apocalypse Now does a fantastic build as the audience goes on the voyage into the darkest part of the human psyche.

Movie Title: Apocalypse Now

Actors: Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Albert Hall, Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper, G.D. Spradlin, Jerry Ziesmer, Scott Glenn, Bo Byers

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Year: 1979

Genre: Drama

Method of Viewing: DVD

Location of Viewing: Home

Viewing with: No One

Rotten Tomatoes: 99% – Francis Ford Coppola’s haunting, hallucinatory Vietnam War epic is cinema at its most audacious and visionary.

My rating: *****

My assessment (the first 101 words at least): I had actually read Heart of Darkness before watching this movie, but didn’t realize that Apocalypse Now was more or less a modern update of Heart of Darkness until Walter E. Kurtz’s character showed up with a bald skull. Once that connection was made it all synced up for me and I realized what I was watching. This movie does a fantastic job of building up the suspension and fear, all the while delivering a message about the humanity of man. This is one of the few dramatic movies I’ve found where I completely agree with the critics. A fantastic movie.