This is part 11 of 12 of my retrospective of Stanley Kubrick’s career.
Kubrick's second war movie, Full Metal Jacket, cannot be more contrasting to its previous one. While Paths of Glory presents the moral issues at hand clearly, in Jacket the moral issues are lost in the insanity of war.
The first part is all about the training of drafted civilians into the marines. The intensity of the acting and the pacing makes it nearly impossible to gaze away from the screen. Casting an actual ex drill instructor which was allowed to ad-lib was a brilliant move. By the end of that act, you went through the same mental brainwash as a marine, which prepares you perfectly for the second part.
The second part is the "war" part, and after the first attack on the base, it's thrilling chaos. While Paths was almost entirely filmed on set, that second part was filmed in a large burning and destroyed city in Vietnam. The action scene has a spectacular amount of bullets shots at buildings and a few explosions to top it off.
And as usual, the cinematography and colours are nearly perfect. The American pop songs add a layer of irony. The story is interesting, though admittedly it isn't as much the focus as the raw emotions. And it does so so well that, like his previous movies, even if you don't like war movies, you'll always remember this one.
Published on August 11, 2012 at 21:40 EDT
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