*** Official THE ALAMO Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Randy Korstick]

Well Said.

 

[BobbyPerry]

if you haven't seen it.. than I don't see how you can make an opinion. While some may not like the film-I thought it was much better than I was expecting. And I'd like to see the actors get some recognition for all their hard work.

 

[Jasmine Meathe]

Patrick Wilson was amazing IMO.

 

[Bill McCamy]

Like many, I've been interested in the Alamo story since I learned of it from Disney in the mid-fifties. I've got to agree that the movie accurately reflects the accounts and opinions of a variety of writers about the events of those "13 days of glory." There are too many conflicting accounts for it to agree with them all. Nothing I saw leapt out as false (there were some instances of dramatic license).

For a two hour film, it captured the social, political, and military complexities of the Texas revolt pretty well. I'm glad I ignored the tepid reviews (Ebert and Roeper had the only positive review I saw), and took the time to see it in a theater.

 

[Alex Spindler]

I finally caught it and found it to be only mildly entertaining, but lacking overall. I wasn't very familiar with the overall story, so I may be wrong in criticizing the movie for some things, but I had some faults with their treatment of the historic figures.

I enjoyed a great deal Thornton's Davey Crockett, especially how he deflates the mythic persona to some of the men. But the entire sequence of his execution felt very over the top. Not only was he the sole survivor, but he provided a very cliche comedic last stand that had me rolling my eyes. It seriously undermined the human character who lived under the shadow of a mythic persona they had spent the entire film putting forward with an end that came right out of the kind of hyperbole he was struggling against.

And, while I appreciate that Jim Bowie was present, I felt like they spent far too much screen time with his delusions of his wife and the arming of him with pistols. And they brought out the knife so many times that I felt like I was being clubbed on the head that this is that Jim Bowie, in case I forgot.


The largest fault I had was the same one I leveled against Pearl Harbor. When faced with presenting us a tragic event, the filmmakers feel compelled to close it with a jingoistic rallying event. In PH's case, it was the Dolittle raid that just dragged on and diminished the tragic event we had been shown. In The Alamo's case, I found the San Jacinto battle to be similarly dragged out and superfluous, diminishing the overall impact of the Alamo event. I always felt that, should there be a postscripting event, it is better dealt with in the manner than Braveheart did, which was with a short and symbolic comment. Watching Sam Houston divine the right field to attack from had me pondering why they didn't call it The Alamo, and other Texas conflicts.

For the film overall, it was entertaining, and I quite liked how Billy Bob handled Davey Crockett. The battle scenes were pretty good as well, although it always seemed like the Mexicans were taking a larger beating than they apparently did. I loved that they subtitled the Mexican dialogue and showed a bit of their side of things. I sincerely hope more films take this approach.

Lots of my fellow audience members were restless and bored through much of it, but I was able to concentrate on it throughout. Lots of fidgeting and sleeping.

 

[ChuckSolo]

I really enjoyed this one. A stark contrast to the John Wayne version, which I also liked. I found it quite refreshing that the "heros" were portrayed as being more "human" than the legends describe them. I seems most people who hated the movie keep clinging to the school textbook versions that were drummed into us in public schools. I remember only very little even being said about the Alamo in US History class, and even less about the Mexican War (US land grab). In any case, I thought the movie was pretty well done.