The big battles impress, but become somewhat samey. Part Three is threatened.
Comment
12/30/06
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Gods and Generals (2003)
8 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 115
Fresh: 9
Rotten:106
Average Rating: 3.6/10
Consensus: Filled with two-dimensional characters and pompous self-righteousness, Gods and Generals is a long, tedious sit. Some may also take offense at the pro-Confederate slant.
Runtime: 3 hrs 39 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: This epic film from writer-director Ron Maxwell chronicles the early events of the American Civil War. It's a prequel to his earlier GETTYSBURG, with some of the same cast, and is part of a planned trilogy. Stephen Lang plays Thomas... [More]
Starring: Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang, Robert Duvall, Mira Sorvino
Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
Reviews for Gods and Generals
Top Critic The procession of monotonous, oddly gore-free battles breaks frequently for bloated speechifying.
06/24/06
Top Critic
Top Critic Swapping politics for crass platitudes, Gods and Generals is a monumental folly.
06/24/03
Top Critic An interesting film weakened by ham-fisted writing and direction and heavy-handed revisionism.
06/19/03
Maxwell continues his textbook emphasis on military maneuvers, but despite literally thousands of Civil War reenactors recruited for the film, the wide-screen canvas fails to map the tactics or evoke the terror of battle.
02/27/07
Then there is 'Gods and Generals,' cut from the same production cloth as 'Gettysburg' but a film of very loose ends.
10/15/04
You will watch a series of battle re-enactments and wait for a film to break out.
12/01/03
Click to read the article
10/17/03
Top Critic
Imagine watching half of Band of Brothers in one sitting, but with the story moving at a much slower pace.
07/25/03
Maxwell has made the, shall we say interesting, decision to change [Stonewall Jackson]God’s hellcat into a warm and fuzzy teddy bear.
04/05/03
A stiff and stilted historical pageant that somehow manages to make the savage tumult of thousands pitched against thousands seem not so much dreadul as dreadfully dull.
03/25/03
Full of windy speeches about honor, god, fealty, and so on, the movie comes to a literal standstill whenever one of these noble addresses is about to be delivered.
03/10/03
Stay far away from the three hour-plus Gods and Generals--unless, of course, you need a good nap.
03/07/03
If D.W. Griffith's 1915 Civil War stunner, 'The Birth of a Nation,' was 'history writ with lightning,' in the famous phrase of President Woodrow Wilson, than Ted Turner's 'Gods and Generals' is history writ with sorghum...
03/06/03
A repulsive combination of dry textbook history and pandering melodrama.
03/05/03
Never manages anything like thrills and by the long-delayed end has turned into one big forced march.
03/04/03
Unlike 'Gettysburg,' however, 'Gods and Generals' is slow-moving and stilted and is punctuated by speeches rather than drama and action.
03/03/03
A more appropriate title would be The Great Whitewashing of the Rebellion.
03/02/03
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Pu - What A Bloated Monstrosity..!!
by: markgpl 9/26/03
by: markgpl 9/26/03
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