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Some Christian critics don't see the film as valuable. One Christian review Web site—Movieguide—dismisses Apocalypse Now as "abhorrent," calling it a "strange, confused, pagan take on Vietnam." Coppola, the review says, has "weird sensibilities," and screenwriter John Milius is also accused of having a "pagan philosophy." Preview's John Barber protests, "There is an underlying anti-war sentiment in the film, yet the stunning cinematography makes war aesthetically pleasing. Moviegoers who prefer morally sound, uplifting entertainment should look elsewhere." Indeed, if you're looking for "uplifting entertainment," go elsewhere: Apocalypse Now is a work of art. The stunning cinematography does not make war look appealing, unless you have an appetite for chaos and gore. Certainly there is something aesthetically pleasing about a fleet of helicopters, pillars of fire, the impenetrable jungle. The beauty of these things only makes the wickedness of mankind's evil in the midst of it all the more disturbing.

Across the country, the mainstream press is celebrating. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert wrote a detailed and personal rave: "More than ever it is clear … Apocalypse Now is one of the great films of all time. It shames modern Hollywood's timidity. To watch it is to feel yourself lifted up to the heights where the cinema can take you, but so rarely does. The film is a mirror reflecting our feelings about the war in Vietnam, in all their complexity and sadness. To those who wrote me defending the banality of Pearl Harbor, I wrote back: 'See Apocalypse Now and reflect on the difference.'" He calls the movie "epic filmmaking on a scale within the reach of only a few directors—Tarkovsky, Lean, Eisenstein, Kurosawa."

Many argued about the value of the added footage. Mr. Showbiz's Michael Atkinson writes, "[The new material] deepens it, feverishly ups the psychedelic war-opera quotient." He explains that it "offers a rather concise statement about the war: It didn't happen to us, we did it to ourselves. The United States would have itself believe it all started with the Vietcong, and we intervened to save the poor South Vietnamese, but Coppola had the [courage], in 1979, to give us a clearer picture. It's a shame that the film's more salient political tangents were cut until now." Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman sounds one of the few sour notes: "I don't think Redux is superior to the 1979 version. Quite the contrary, it's draggier and more portentous, more inflated with its own importance."

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August (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45