Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan actually does not have one of the greatest openings of all time. It instead has a prologue which stands as a serious problem with the entire film. It then goes to the D-Day invasion scene which is downright outstanding in its visceral detail of the battle. The film progresses but that nagging prologue was not just a fluke it is instead a huge strand of the film. The whole idea of the of the troops going to save one man frankly is over analyzed by the film. For some reason it states as though they are risking their lives for the one man, but they'd be risking their lives anyways. In fact throughout the film the deaths only come when they get in standard military action that has nothing to do with Ryan specifically until the ending. The film decides to go on this as its dramatic core unfortunately as it makes sure we know the sacrifices around Ryan, and just in case we did not get it from the main action we have that prologue and the epilogue to make sure we remember that he had to "earn this". The problem is that's not it even for Spielberg who in this case pours it on way too thick in too many scenes particularly in his use of some especially sentimental orchestra swells by John Williams. Now this makes it feel oddly disjointed against how harsh much of the warfare is depicted and there is one brutal death in the film which Spielberg allows to play out in a pared down and very effective fashion. There's enough great elements in the film for it to be considered good, but it is an uneven effort largely due to Spielberg keeping to too many of his trademarks.
3.5/5