Reviews

I was really fooled by the poster on MAX's series' carousel. Only about an entire episode in did I finally go to IMDB to figure out it was NOT Paul Giamatti on that poster, it was someone different. Not only that, the original poster from Spain has the "Not-Paul Giamatti" character's full beard. So quite literally someone at HBO said, wow, this guy looks like Paul Giamatti, I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll shave off the beard, smudge the face a little in the jowls, and we'll get X amount more hits to the series by sheer accident, and maybe X% of those people will stick around and watch the series despite the slight of hand. Well, not only was I distraught that it wasn't Paul Giamatti, but, it was in a different language. And, this is basically the plot to a little known cult classic "Warlock: Armageddon" where the son of satan (or satan's top witch, I forget) needs to collect runestones which were scattered into the four winds by druids a thousand years earlier, and if he can get them all together by the next lunar eclipse, Satan can be reborn, and now the Warlock, reborn himself through a really terrible birth scene, needs to go around the world killing people in all sorts of creative ways to get the stones back, usually tricking the person like a Genie would. Long story short, its a remake of Warlock Armageddon, strike one, and they fooled me into photoshopping the star to look like our beloved Paul Giamatti. Strike Two. Do better HBO, you're above this.

This entire effort is a major disappointment when compared to Gettysburg, what is remarkable its Maxwell who directed both, and the same writer too. Looking at this objectively, it just lacks focus; unlike Gettysburg (a single event in history) which Maxwell et.al. Could focus their energy on, Gods and Generals takes place over 3+ years. What ensues is 4 hours of rambling, disjointed made for TV mellow drama shlock with a Hollywood budget. So its just utterly confusing as a viewer.

I can go on and on, but for me, it falls apart with the sophomoric writing. I counted at least a dozen instances where they shoehorned in actual quotes from these historical figures into places where they made no sense. They even have characters steal each other's quotes which made me LOL hard a few times. Its distracting!

In fact, this entire script is just one scene after another which are structured around famous quotes. The worst example is JEB Stuart, quite literally out of no where, ending a scene with Stonewall Jackson saying "Oh by the way (even though this is very off topic and you did not ask), I will always tell my men to gallop toward the enemy, and trot away". Its stuff like that which makes this movie unbearable, especially when compared to Gettysburg, which had "some" of that but was balanced out by actual character arcs, impressive direction of masses of reenactors, and an A list cast which acted that entire film masterfully, e.g. Sheen, Berringer, Lang, and especially Richard Jordan r.i.p. Gettysburg was able to masterfully (probably in editing phase) take situations before and during the battle to shape a properly structured, easy to follow story despite there being 50+ main characters.

Gods and Generals is just a mess, the complete opposite. I totally understand the propensity for civil war buffs (like myself) to give this a high score (look how many 10 stars skew the results), but, I say quite literally the opposite, because we're civil war buffs we deserve a better film that isn't a mess.

10/10 stars? Is this as good as Glory? Gone with the Wind? Or even Cold Mountain?

Hear me out. I am a bit biased about this story because I had friends over there like many of us, and this could be one of the most important stories to come out of nearly 20 years of that conflict. The most important and captivating, what Lutrell and his team went through is truly the stuff of legends. Enter: Peter Berg and his directing skills.

I don't want to go off on a tangent, but you remember how you felt when you first saw Apocalypse Now, or Platoon even.. its truly unforgettable, the tone, the imagery, the soundtracks, everything about those films is imprinted on your pysche for the rest of your life. These are made by master filmmakers, different styles, but similar outcomes on the audience of course. On the other side of the spectrum we have Peter Berg. I can go on and on, but quite simply THIS STORY DESERVED BETTER than PETER BERG. And its nothing personal, its like we're all baseball fans and instead of Mickey Mantle coming to the plate to try and win the world series, (which is very important to sports, like this story is to American history), we get Lenny Dykstra. 50 year old Lenny Dykstra, not even Lenny in his prime.

Anyway, that's how I feel. This movie could have been a classic, not some cheap ra-ra-ra red white and blue propaganda film that you forget by bed time. It deserved way better.

And that's not a compliment. I don't know what it is about this guy, he either selects really great scripts and ideas and makes them mediocre movies, or picks really mediocre scripts and turns them into the most high budgeted nonsense in film history.

This falls into the former category. And all of his stuff is extremely formulaic, 1. Big event, inciting incident 2. Bad guys, bad bad guys, so bad, little to no motive, just bad guys 3. Enter Good guys, world class skill set, no motives except being good and "protecting the innocent" 4. Words, dialogue, argument, words and more words 5. Super high budget shootout scene(s) 6. Hoards of bad guys die, then the main bad guy dies, as well as at least 1 good guy 7. Cue the feelgood music 8. Roll credits with the obligatory "this is dedicated to someone in Peter's life" message

No arcs, plot takes a back seat to high budget yet still shlocky action.

The Kingdom wanted to be a good movie, but it got Peter Berg. Pure A to B+ list cast should have pushed this over the edge, but it had Peter Berg at the helm.

I like him ok as an actor from the 90s, its nothing personal, I just don't think he's ever made a good movie. Lone survivor included. I have to give this a 6 because I, in good faith, can not put it on the same level as many films to which I give 7's.