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| Apocalypse Now | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 692 reviews)
Sales Rank: 8158
Category: Video
Actors: Sam Bottoms, Marlon Brando, Bo Byers, Colleen Camp, Robert Duvall
Publisher: Paramount
Studio: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Label: Paramount
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Hifi Sound, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Vietnamese (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: VHS Tape
Running Time: 153 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6300214826
UPC: 097360230635
EAN: 9786300214828
ASIN: 6300214826
Release Date: December 7, 1992
Theatrical Release Date: August 15, 1979
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com essential video
In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it were his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair, but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made. It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story "Heart of Darkness" into the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving wartime action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images, and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways on a peasant sampan and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning." Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com
Digitally remastered with 49 minutes of previously unseen footage, Apocalypse Now Redux is the reference standard of Francis Coppola's 1979 epic. A metaphorical hallucination of the Vietnam War, the film was reconstructed by Coppola and editor Walter Murch to enrich themes and clarify the ending. On that basis Redux is a qualified success, more coherent than the original while inviting the same accusations of directorial excess. The restored "French plantation" sequence adds ghostly resonance to the war's absurdity, and Willard's theft of Colonel Kurtz's beloved surfboard adds welcomed humor to the film's nightmarish upriver journey. An encounter with Playboy Playmates seems superfluous compared to the enhanced interplay between Willard and his ill-fated boat crew, but compensation arrives in the hellish Kurtz compound, where Willard's mission--and the performances of Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando--reach even greater heights of insanity, thus validating Redux as the rightful heir to Coppola's triumphantly rampant ambition. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 687 more reviews...
The Horror... September 30, 2008
Where could I possible start with this movie. First of all i don't think my head has stopped spinning. Apocalypse Now is an odd movie to say the least and nothing like i have ever seen. It was strange, disturbing, violent, seemingly immoral, and guess what, i loved it. From the very first scene it becomes obvious this isn't your typical war movie. The farther in you go the more it plays out like a psychological horror film. Francis Ford Coppola achieves this style many different ways. Everything from Martin sheen's inner monologue, to the films striking cinematography to its intense plotting works cohesively to bring this films intensity and brilliance
In a large sense, it is an extremely artistic film. The entire movie is immensely visual and surreal. The filmmakers used a fascinating array of colors and textures in their shots. The camera gets everything from sweeping shots of helicopters flying over the Vietnamese landscape to ominous close-ups of men covered in shadow.
Another striking component to the film is its foreboding soundtrack. I usually find that music play an extremely important role in the quality of the film and Apocalypse now doesn't disappoint.
The sensual aspects a film can only take you so far unless the subject matter holds your attention as well. As if the effect this film has on your senses isn't commanding enough, Apocalypse Now's effect on the mind takes it to an entirely new level. I left the film utterly confused on the moral message of the film but i think that was more or less intentional. So many of the actions of the different characters are appalling but Coppola brings you so deep into the world of the Vietnam war that it is hard condemn them.
Apocalypse Now is an extremely representational film. I think the only way for a film to even come close to conveying the horrors of the Vietnam war is to show it with a surreal darkness. Apocalypse Now does its job phenomenally and holds your attention long after the film is over. As it turns out, Marlon Brando's famous quote encapsulates the essence of this film exquisitely.
 Stick With the Original Version. September 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First, I'll join with those who are criticising Coppola for not releasing this movie in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio as well as spreading each movie over two discs. Both were staggeringly incompetent decisions and I'll leave it at that.
***
I'm starting to get weary when I hear the term "director's cut". Sometimes they're well done like Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner." Other times the director's "original vision" ends up being a weaker film as in when William Friedkin completely screwed up the ending of "The Exorcist" in his restored version.
"Apocalypse Now" was very well made and it seems that Coppola who was in his creative prime when he made this film (having completed "Godfather I & II" and "The Conversation" and then fading away into mediocrity) simply decided to go back and desicrate one of his masterpieces. He should have realized that he was a much better director in the 1970s when he made "Apocalypse Now" then he is at present, and that many of the scenes that he cut out he did so for good reason.
- I like the extra footage of Col. Kilgore, however having Captain Willard steal his surfboard and then laugh with glee like a frat boy was totally not in his character and it was best left on the cutting room floor.
- The playboy bunnies extra scene is beyond ridiculous. It wasn't even inserted into the movie correctly. One minute it's a sunny day Willard is reading Col. Kurt's letter to his son and looking at a photo of Kurtz and then suddenly it's raining and they come across a washed out army compound. Willard offers two drums of deisel fuel in exchange for sex for the boys on the boat. Again this is totally out of character for Willard, and completely unbelievable as a whole. Then we have to watch a ridiculous scene with the men and the playboy bunnies which aside from the boob value adds absolutely nothing to the film. The scene then very abruptly ends and suddenly everyone is back on the boat again, it's not raining anymore and Willard is staring at the same photo of Kurtz?? The sequence was slapped into the movie in a completely awkward way and feels as if Coppola simply pounded it into place with a hammer without any regard to the scenes surrounding it. What's worse is it damages the credibility of the very next scene where they come across the Vietnamese supply boat and kill the passengers. The impact of this atrocity is taken away as the motivations of the crew are not quite as understandable anymore because they've just had the best R&R that any G.I. in any war could possibly ever have. Also the portion where Willard kills the injured Vietnamese woman because he's in a hurry to get moving doesn't make any sense now. He apparenly wasn't in too big a hurry in the previous scene having made the deal for the men to have sex with the bunnies??
- The French Plantation sequence is simply to long and irrelevant. Willard and the crew have dinner in the home of a French family. He inquires as to why the family is still in Vietnam to which he gets a TWENTY MINUTE answer by everyone at the table as they yell back and forth at one another. He then suddenly ends up with a French woman while the soundtrack spews very sappy and inappropriate music. After watching this awful sequence I started whispering to myself "the horror, the horror."
- The extra scene with Brando reading Time Magazine is also pointless. What's even more bizarre is there is an excellent scene that was cut from the film where Kurtz talks to Willard in the bamboo cage. This scene is very well written and helps explain the mindset of the Kurtz character yet it was left out in favor of the Time Magazine scene which again adds nothing to the film.
The only thing the "Redux" version has in comparison to the original version is extreme length. I tend to like long movies but not when they seem overly padded. Stick with the original version! As far as "Apocalypse Now Redux" goes, for me, this version does not exist...nor will it ever exist.
 Give Me A Break !!! :-( August 5, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Sorry, but how can this be "complete" when it does not include "Hearts of Darkness" ??? Get a life. Coppola's wife directed it, and he produced it (as far as I know), so where are the rights problems ??? One thing that really annoys me about these 60s-70s directors, who went on about "changing the world", when they were younger, but who are now more money-grabbing than the worst studio system. Hey, I've bought two DVD versions of Apocalypse Now already, how many more do you want me to buy??? Maybe I'll just transfer my "Hearts Of Darkness" VHS to video, as I'm not so well-of I can afford it all. Thanks, Coppola. ps, your wine stinks too.
If God and Wagner had teamed up to make a film about Vietnam, starring a 400-pound bald Marlon Brando, this is what you'd get July 29, 2008
Holy smokes. Where to begin. This film is epic. This film is amazing. This film is wild. Nobody makes films like this anymore. Powerful, mind bending, insane. Coppola famously said that this wasn't a film about the Vietnam war, this is the Vietnam war. If you haven't seen this yet, see it. So many classic scenes, so many classic lines, and such a powerful film. Great stuff.
Great Movie July 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Its great it has both versions, the only problem is that the extended version is a little bit long. But its Great.
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