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Title: Apocalypse, No!
Review: Although many films from the 1970s have aged well--Coppola's two "Godfather" pictures come to mind--this movie is too much a product of its time to hold much appeal for contemporary viewers. Coppola attempts to retell Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" in the Vietnamese jungle. Instead of creating a surreal journey from civilization to savagery, however, Coppola creates a confusing, didactic muddle of disconnected scenes. Add to the mix several mannered performances, heavy-handed dialogue, and a soundtrack that underscores all of Coppola's main ideas in broad, obvious strokes, and the result is an uninvolving movie about the corrosive effects of war. (The final 45 minutes are especially incoherent.) "Full Metal Jacket" does a far superior job of capturing the horror and moral ambivalence of the Viet Nam soldier's experience.
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