I was really looking forward to this movie and was severely disappointed in it. There is absolutely no story in Flags of our Fathers. If you've seen the previews, then you've seen the movie, because not much else happens. Some guys raise a flag, picture becomes famous, they go home to help raise money...that's it. The rest of the movie is just waiting for the credits to come up. The characters have no journey no conflict, they are just basically existing...which isn't very interesting. You can argue that the conflict was that they were just kids and were uneasy with being labeled heroes, but after you get that message there's not much else this movie has to say. It just repeats that message over and over and over again. Other movies have taken the same theme and done a much much better job. There is no culmination of events, there's no resolution, it's just a giant waste of time. The battle scenes were Saving Private Ryan wannabe's and seemed to just be thrown together with very little thought and in no discernible order. Every time a battle scene/flashback occurred you were basically just waiting to see which one of the faceless, nameless, GIs was going to be killed next. The editing was atrocious cutting from current times to bond drive to battle to post battle to pre battle and back to bond drive for no purpose other than to try and make a movie that has no story, seem to have a story. I cared nothing for the characters, they were just empty shells with nothing to say or do but look scared and get blown to bits. And then the ending third of the movie seemed like an after thought and totally useless, like the filmmakers suddenly realized they haven't bored us enough and needed some more useless, unimaginative, uninteresting, drab filler. The racism inflicted upon the Native American character was heavy handed and unconvincing. It made you roll your eyes in astonishment at the cheesiness of it, rather than feeling any emotion towards the character.<br /><br />Very very disappointing. I'm amazed that it is getting such kind reviews. Windtalkers was better than this movie, and Windtalkers was terrible!