Reel Critics

Peggy Rogers

“Apocalypse Now Redux” returns to the screen 25 years later with an

additional 46 minutes of footage and the soundtrack remixed. Still, the

film is a director’s cut worth the price of admission.

Director Francis Ford Coppola’s addition of his beloved French

plantation scene cut from the original is the a flaw of “Apocalypse Now

Redux.” The accents are difficult to understand. Their shouting about the

Communists and staying on their land fails to connect with the audience

given their late introduction to the story.

There is also such heavy handed symbolism on the part of the director

that it becomes a psych-introduction class. It stops the movie cold, at

best serving as an intermission in the 3 hour and 16 minute movie.

The remaining new footage comes with Kurtz (Marlon Brando) revealing

more of his insanity, thus giving Willard (Martin Sheen) better

justification for completing his mission. Tame by today’s standards of

violence, intercutting the sacrifice of the water buffalo (actually done)

with Kurtz’s death is still bone chilling.

Twenty five years later the film holds up, but rather than associating

the events with one particular war the passage of time provides the

opportunity to associate them with war in general.

The remixed soundtrack brings the sounds right up to your ears similar

to “Saving Private Ryan’s” zinging bullets. In “Redux” you hear the

helicopters flying overhead so realistically the ground almost starts to

shake.

For fans of the movie there is a documentary of the making of

“Apocalypse Now” by Eleanor Coppola, the director’s wife.* PEGGY J.

ROGERS, 39, produces commercial videos and documentaries.