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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Paramount
Salesrank: 22988
Released: August 15, 1979 |
| Our Price: $49.98 |
| Used Price: $8.79 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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
Description of Apocalypse Now:
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
Apocalypse Now Reviews:
Images which will never leave my mind 
2009-11-27 - I won't, I can't, forget this movie. I'm sure--had my draft number been higher--this movie would affect me even more, had I survived Vietnam. The horror. . .
Yet for all its power, the film is far less compelling than "Heart of Darkness". And Vietnam, for all its contemporary tragedy, is far less tragic than the "civilizing" of colonial powers. (Or is Vietnam just a recent addition to that tale of "civilization"?)
After watching "Apocalypse Now Redux" yet again and rereading "Heart of Darkness" yet again, I was bothered by this irksome detail: Nowhere, nowhere in the film or credits does Francis Ford Coppola explicitly credit Joseph Conrad. The horror. . .the horror.
The Best Value for Apocalypse Now Fanatics 
2009-11-14 - The is the best pick for all Apocalypse Now fans, whether they be new ones, old ones, or are simply rediscovering this classic historical fictional account of the Vietnam War. It's all here: the original 1979 version, the 2001 redux, commentary by Director Francis Ford Coppola, special features, scene selection, multi-languge subtitles, etc.
Interestingly, the best scene (in my opinion) was not included in the original version. This is called the "French Plantation." This scene is so good that I must have watched it a dozen times. Apparently, it was edited out of the 1979 original version, for unclear reasons, but possibly just to limit the sheer length of this film. It is indeed a long film, but every minute is well done and fascinating. The French Plantation scene reappears in the 2001 redux version. "The Complete Dossier" is a good buy just for this scene alone. It explores many of the controversial issues surrounding whether or not the US should have been involved in the Vietnam War, the role of the Viet Cong,the Russians, the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, and, most importantly, the Americans.
Great quotations from the movie: "charging murder here is like giving out speeding tickets at the Indianpolis 500." "I love the smell of napalm in the morning: that gasoline smell...it smells like..........victory!" "Horror and moral terror are our friends: if they aren't, they are certainly enemies to be feared." "Charlie don't surf." "There are two of you: one that loves, and one that kills."
At times horrifying. At times funny. Always thought provoking and interesting. One cannot understand the Vietnam War is one has not seen this movie. Buy it. Watch it -- more than once. You won't be disappointed.
A masterpiece
2009-10-27 - This is my favorite "Vietnam War" film, though it is more of an anti-war film set during the war. The characters and soundtrack are all likeable and eccentric, and some humor is thrown in at times. The director's cut adds a lot of previously-unseen footage, most of which adds to the film's side stories and character backgrounds. Overall a very powerful visual depiction of the chaos and confusion of war.
advise from a true fan of the original Apocalypse Now 
2009-10-11 - Folks,
Those of you consider yourselves a true loyal fan of this great epic should first consider buying the documentary, "Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" (1991). After seeing this epic of a documentary of the making of Apocalypse Now then go out and buy the "second" Apocalypse Now with "Redux" at the end. Francis Ford Coppola clearly states why he made the original the way it is and in particular why he took out the (slow and confusing) French Plantation scene. There is a lot of the French Plantation scene shown in Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse so Redux is really not the first time the scene is shown although you don't see the entire scene in the documentary you aren't missing anything hence the reason Coppola took it out! The addition helicopter/Playboy scene is useless and they didn't even film the entire script of that segment due to the pouring rain.
I just want to message that IMO "Redux" is a rip off. The rabid fans (like me) of Apocalypse Now must see it and own it but know it for what it is... another way to get at your money for little substance in return.
The original version RULES! :)
Thanks for reading,
Rick
Austin, TX
PS: Charlie Don't Surf !!!!!!!
Just Remarkable
2009-09-25 - Apocalypse Now is loosely based on the book `Hear of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; the film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and set in the Vietnam War; Martin Sheen plays Captain Benjamin L. Willard who is picked from a `Special forces' group to hunt down and assassinate Colonel Walter Kurtz, who has supposed to have gone insane. Kurtz is played only shortly by Marlon Brando but he gives off the impression that the madness of war he has witnessed in this "new war" Vietnam, has pushed him over the edge. Dennis Hopper plays a brilliant bit part as the photojournalist; he reviles Kurtz like a poetic God, the parts played by the crew of the small boat are played well by Frederic Forrest as the `Chef', Laurence Fishburne as `Mr. Clean' (A young colored boy who thinks the war is one big adventure). There are other parts played by Robert Duvall who plays Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who tries to act like one of the boys and likes to surf. Harrison Ford plays a bit part early on in the film as an up and coming gopher for the generals.
Along with Coppola, John Milius has written a brilliant a subtle screenplay about the horror of war, the whole film works well although it is renowned for the multitude of problems while filming. The film was filmed in the Philippines and on numerous occasions the President of the country had to take the helicopters that he had rented to Coppola away to fight the real `Revolution' on the opposite side of the film. The film was also to run into numerous financial difficulties that literally bankrupted the Coppola family, but on its release in 1979, the film was rewarded with two Oscars, which in my eyes is a little disappointing.
