Saving Private Ryan is just one incredible experience from the amazing war sequences from the D-Day invasion to the Ramelle scene but in between are some excellent performances headlined by Tom Hanks, and should’ve taken home Best Picture especially over Shakespeare in Love.
Saving Private Ryan
— 20th Commemorative Anniversary —
(1998)
Genre(s): War, Action, Drama
Paramount | R – 169 min. – $31.99 | May 8, 2018
Date Published: 05/05/2018 | Author: The Movieman
|
|
|||||||||||
THE MOVIE — 5.0/5 |
|
Plot Synopsis: Seen through the eyes of a squad of American soldiers, the story begins with World War II’s historic D-Day invasion, then moves beyond the beach as the men embark on a dangerous special mission. Captain John Miller (TOM HANKS) must take his men — Sergeant Horvath (TOM SIZEMORE), Private Reiben (EDWARD BURNS), Private Jackson (BARRY PEPPER), Private Mellish (ADAM GOLDBERG), Private Caparzo (VIN DIESEL) and T-4 Medic Wade (GIOVANNI RIBISI) — behind enemy lines to find Private James Ryan (MATT DAMON), whose three brothers have been killed in combat.
Faced with impossible odds, the men question their orders. Why are eight men risking their lives to save just one? Surrounded by the brutal realities of war, each man searches for his own answer – and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honor, decency, and respect. Review: Fuck Shakespeare in Love. Sure, not very tactful or professional, but that’s how I feel now having seen Saving Private Ryan only my second time and it still is an incredible, and heartbreaking, experience. Steven Spielberg does a tremendous job showing the horrors of war, honoring the heroes while also not glorifying war. What’s particularly amazing, this probably isn’t even Steven Spielberg’s best film, not even his best film set during World War II, that goes to the emotionally battering Schindler’s List. But even so, Saving Private Ryan was just an incredible journey from the intense opening sequence set during the D-Day Omaha Beach in which allied troops were slaughtered and was probably a miracle in conjunction with tough grit that they were eventually able to take the beach, one prong towards the costly victory in the war. The way the scene was shot was itself fantastic, utilizing the shaky-cam style without going so overboard where it was too confusing to see what was going on or feeling nauseous while still conveying the chaos and brutality of the situation.
Going beyond Spielberg’s filmmaking, the performances were excellent, no more evident than Tom Hanks, no surprise there and probably should’ve gotten the Academy Award over Roberto Benigni though I doubt Hanks would’ve climbed on chairs making his way to the stage… The supporting cast also does well opposite Hanks with Tom Sizemore reminding you what a hell of an actor he used to be (not only here, but Heat was well) and Edward Burns gets his moments in the spotlight. In the end, Saving Private Ryan is perhaps one of my favorite films about World War II or maybe even one of my favorite war films period. It’s an emotional experience from beginning to end and still astounds me it failed to take home the Best Picture prize (though Spielberg did win for Director at least). |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 3.0/5 |
|
This release comes with a glossy slip cover and inside a redemption code for the Digital copy. Saving Private Ryan:
Shooting War (1:28:05; SD) is a documentary with wartime photographs (and video) plus interviews with the photographers themselves; hosted by Tom Hanks. |
VIDEO – 5.0/5 |
| Saving Private Ryan is the latest catalog to get the 4K upgrade from Paramount and if must say, easily the best to come down the pike in a while. The film is shown with a 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 2160p high-definition transfer. The picture in a word was remarkable: detail was exceptionally sharp such as the texture on the helmets while skin tones appeared natural and colors, despite the dark nature, had a good flare to them (including the blood red during the battle scenes). |
AUDIO – 5.0/5 |
| Not to be content with just porting over the original DTS-HD Master Audio track, this has been upgraded to Dolby Atmos track and my goodness you get the full force of the war right in your face with every blast, gunshot and bombing, all of which shook my floor so the LFE channel really got a nice workout. But it’s not all just the depth of those action scenes, but dialogue levels came through the center channel with good clarity and the front and, particularly, rear channels output John Williams’ score and some ambient noises. |
OVERALL – 4.75/5 |
|
Overall, Saving Private Ryan is just one incredible experience from the amazing war sequences from the D-Day invasion to the Ramelle scene but in between are some excellent performances headlined by Tom Hanks, and should’ve taken home Best Picture especially over Shakespeare in Love. As for the 4K UHD release offers up the same features from the “Sapphire Series” Blu-ray release while the video and audio transfers were absolutely incredible and definitely reference quality work. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.