Gettysburg

An unflinching look look at the tragedy and triumph of fake facial hair.

Enjoyable war drama.

Meticulous (almost obsessive) historical accuracy and attention to detail is quite admirable, but sluggish direction (battle scenes are staged with no sense of rhythm or urgency) and a lack of insight into the characters, outside of their militaristic decisions, means that the movie is a tough slog if its very narrow perspective isn't already of interest. Wonderful performances though, especially by Daniels in a career-best turn, and Sheen who really comes into his own in the second half.

This is really only worthwhile if you want to know what happened on a technical level, day by day. To be fair 'Gettysburg' does a good job of visualizing that, but man everything else besides that kinda sucks. Everyone either gives 'this is why we're fighting' speeches or talks in stilted joviality. Way too much swelling orchestra music and the English guy was just ridiculous.

A couple of misses in the casting department, and some low budget battle scenes detract from a pretty enjoyable look at a turning point for our young country.

Pretty bad really ,Jeff Daniels performance stands out.

The good work done by the visuals is undone by the frequent pontificating about the heroism of being ... Virginian? The ground swell of heroic music as soldier march to battle. The requests for the honour to salute someone for being a "good soldier." It is as self important as it is long, and brother, it is way too long.

Any war buff will love this movie. Could be a bit long for the lay person, but I loved it. Great acting, Jeff Bridges performance is great.

Inspiring music romanticizes the unimaginative, sanitized battle scenes. This is the kind of movie men watch when they want to go to war. Pretty good performances though.

Quite enjoyable if you really like war movies set in that time period. There isn't much of a story just order of battle. Acting is quite good with one or two exceptions(Sheen). Soundtrack is well suited for this type of movie. I personally liked impartial point of view on battle thus having good and bad guys on both sides of the battlefield. Camera was sometimes a bit shaky and ending could be better done. Overall really good insight in one of the battles of American Civil War.

B+

Martin Sheen is so totally NOT Robert E. Lee

Good war film.

Not a fan of making Lee look like a complete idiot, but stirring.

Director's Cut

Based on a magnificent book, the film pales in comparison and really should be better than it is. Mostly it suffers from being pedestrian in its approach to the battle scenes, as well as overwrought in general. Less verbal literalism (saying everything) and more visual communication would strengthen the film considerably. The novel simply wasn't translated well to the visual medium.

I find the dialogue and accents to be inauthentic at best, but this 4 hour film is still a must-see War movie with a great soundtrack.

"Gettysburg wins the day by giving a detailed account of the three-day battle (for the first time in a feature film), shot on actual location where the events took place."