Full Metal Jacket (1987) review

 
(8/10)

WAR-The eighth of Kubrick's favorite subjects as foretold by the DVD booklet.

PLOT:This takes place during the drafts of the Vietnamese War. We see the conditions troops are faced with in boot camp and on the battlefield and how war turns into hell, but mainly we follow the squadron of Private Joker (Matthew Modine) and how he tries to keep his buddy Private Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) alive in boot camp, and then serving his duty as journalist in the war. The plot is pretty basic for a war film, but it's executed greatly, though the first half is way better.


ACTING:The acting is awesome. Modine does a great job as Joker and D'Onofrio does a brilliant job of Pyle. I can feel the change that takes place in Pyle during his boot camp days. Other great performances were R. Lee Ermey as Sgt. Hartman, Adam Baldwin as Animal Mother, and Kevin Howard as Rafterman.
SCORE:The score was mainly cheesy 80s music and military songs, but they seemed to fit the moods just well.


CAMERAWORK:This had some of Kubrick's famous camerawork in it, but not much.

OTHER CONTENT:This had most of Kubrick's best perks and feels in it, but I can tell what people mean when they say that it's overrated. You can't feel Kubrick's presence in here as much as some of his other works; in fact, if not for the first half of the film, it would have been just another war movie that no one would've acknowledged as anything more than generic, Oscar-bait. It's still a great film, but it just doesn't live up to the potential Kubrick had.

OVERALL,a great Kubrick film with a greatly executed plot, awesome acting, fitting score, classic Kubrick camerawork, and a great first half, but without the first half, the movie would've been pretty bland.