Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
There are good movies I don't like, and movies I do like that I admit are bad.
The point here isn't her dislike of the movie. It's the way in which she expressed it.
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Well, that is just it; I would argue that
Das Boot is actually a very bad movie dressed up with a degree of historical realism. As a dramatic work, it simply fails due to the fact that it does not achieve the fundamental requirement of attaching the audience to any of the figures within the film. As such, scenes that had the potential to be magnificent and emotionally-charged fell flat.
Werner's offer to deliver Ulmann's letters, The Chief first being made to leave the boat to see his sick wife, and later having that revoked, Johann's freakout followed by his eventual pardon by Der Alte, the desperate struggle at the bottom and the eventual death of a large portion of the crew at the end were meaningless because we simply didn't care about these people. Why should we? Less than a minute of token exposition is given to Ulmann's story in the complete series, and none at all in either the regular film version nor the director's cut. The others receive only a one-line mention; "oh, he has a sick wife", "he's a true-believer", "this guy is a lovable scamp".
It is the same problem with
Gladiator. Maximus and Der Alte (along with the rest of the cast) are wooden, two dimensional figures. Their presence is an excuse for stuff to happen, whether it be unrealistic as in
Gladiator or relatively realistic as in
Das Boot. Regardless of either, the effect is the same. With whom are we supposed to identify? The answer ends up being no one. For Maximus, it is all about getting him into that ring as soon as possible. For Der Alte, it is all about the boat.
In regards to this reviewer, if she didn't like the humor (I didn't like it either) or the gross-out elements, then that is fine. I am not sure that makes her small-minded nor calls for an all out assault on learning, but those are things I have seen as the norm here on SubSim. Sometimes you have to be big enough to let people have opinions that you think are silly. If I had posted every time I saw something small-minded or ignorant around here I wouldn't have time to do anything else.