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Title: Overlong, preachy meladrama
Review: "The Alamo" was a vanity project for Wayne that he spent nearly fourteen years trying to get made. Unfortunately, he was so busy trying to push his conservative political agenda that he failed to make an effective movie. At over three hours long, it is meant to be an epic. Unfortunately the climatic battle lasted only an hour in real life and what led up to it was a long slow siege. The film might have been more effective if Wayne had built up the tension during the siege. Instead, his characters are too busy gving windy speaches and otherwise just occupying screen time. And as a villian, Santa Anna is completely colorless rather than being the classic movie bad guy that he should be. Overall, a would be classic that fell well short of the mark. Nice cinematography, though.
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