Gods & Generals

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amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write("<a href=javascript:popUp('http://buybox.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=reelmoviecriticc&link_code=xsc&creative=23424&camp=2025&path=/dt/assoc/tg/aa/xml/assoc/-/B00007MB7Q/reelmoviecriticc/ref=ac_bb1_,_amazon')><img src=http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/remote-buy-box/buy1.gif border=0 alt='Buy from Amazon.com' ></a>"); document.close(); </script> <noscript> <form method="POST" action="http://buybox.amazon.com/o/dt/assoc/handle-buy-box=B00007MB7Q"> <input type="hidden" name="asin.B00007MB7Q" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="tag-value" value="reelmoviecriticc"> <input type="hidden" name="tag_value" value="reelmoviecriticc"> <input type="image" name="submit.add-to-cart" value="Buy from Amazon.com" border="0" alt="Buy from Amazon.com" src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/add-to-cart.gif"> </form> </noscript>  </B></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="501" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 1987 WIDTH="495"><div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="592" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 23 WIDTH="588"><div> <B> ½</B><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#CC9900" FACE="Wingdings 2" ><B>ê</B></FONT><B>  </B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 23 WIDTH="588"><div> <A HREF="mailto:leeshoquist@aol.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:leeshoquist@aol.com"><U><U>Reviewed by Lee Shoquist</U></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div>    </div> <div> When is an epic not an epic?  </div> <bR> <div> <I>Gods and Generals</I>, the unbearable, bloated new Civil War film by Ronald Maxwell, director of the memorable <A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/20031Q/id2013.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/20031Q/id"><U><I><B>Gettysburg</B></I></U></A><A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/20031Q/id2013.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/20031Q/id"><U><I> </I></U></A>a decade ago, is a film that achieves an almost impossible feat.  In its nearly four hour running time (including intermission!), it manages not one good scene or moment of truth, heart or resonance.  And considering its rich subject - the dawn of the American Civil War - that singular achievement seems all the more mystifying.  What it does supply, however, is an embarrassingly dry portrait of a war with all the passion and blood sucked out, replaced with an arch nobility so suffocating, so permeating every scene, that the film becomes a silly, sanctimonious trip.  </div> <bR> <div> The film charts the days leading up to and into the beginning of the Civil War, and for the most part, it dutifully follows Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang) and Union Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels, reprising his Gettysburg role), spanning from 1861-1863, charting the early battles that led to Gettysburg.  There are many historical battle re-creations, and perhaps American history fetishists will have a good time with this one.  Anyone else is likely to nod off quickly and mercifully.  </div> <bR> <div> We see the battle of Manassas, as well as Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, and in between we're subjected to some painfully underdeveloped domestic interludes back home on each side, and quite a lot of praying and talking to the Almighty, before, during, after and away from battle.  </div> <bR> <div> The focus of the narrative is really a poorly composed love letter to the God-fearing Stonewall, and there's much focus but little depth to his relationship with his devoted wife Anna (an annoyingly cloy Kali Rocha, whom you may remember from her terrific scene-stealing opposite Ben Stiller in  <A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id613.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id61"><U><B>(</B></U></A><A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id613.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id61"><U><I><B>Meet the Parents</B></I></U></A><A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id613.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2000/id61"><U><B>)</B></U></A><B>.</B>  </div> <bR> <div> Chamberlain's domestic life fares even worse and figures less. Mira Sorvino, so good last year in <A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/holiday2002/id1717.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/holiday20"><U><I><B>The Grey Zone</B></I></U></A><A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/holiday2002/id1717.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/holiday20"><U><B>,</B></U></A> bellyflops as Fanny Chamberlain with false emotion and fake tears in her one scene opposite Daniels' Chamberlain.  And former 80's heartthrob C. Thomas Howell makes his first big screen appearance in a couple decades as Chamberlain's younger brother and partner in the trenches.   </div> <bR> <div> It's got to be hard to take an exciting chapter of American history and create a film this dull and dispassionate, but Maxwell has somehow managed to pull it off.  <I>Gods and Generals</I>, apparently conceived to be a sprawling TV miniseries, is a complete failure on nearly every level. As a history lesson, it's muddled and perfunctory. As a war picture, it's got many battles but none conceived with any excitement or spectacle. As a human drama, it's tepid and bloodless. As an epic, it attempts to sprawl but has no sweep. As a film, it's poorly written, acted, shot and paced. </div> <bR> <div> The many characters, requiring a cross cutting nightmare, never come to life. Mired in a script so loaded with laughable, phoney-baloney speechifying that nary a scene passes where someone doesn't look to the sky and utter either a religious epitaph or some hollow sentimental soapbox diatribe on the meaning of courage and honor. Subtlety be damned, it's even done with pasted on, high school theatrical beards, sideburns and accents.  </div> <bR> <div> <I>Gods and Generals</I>, with its insufferable nobility and simplemindedly heroic propaganda, is all the more disappointing in that for the ample screen time devoted to the Blue and the Gray, not a single battle resonates with any kind of horror, heroism or even excitement.  Most of the confrontations consist of subtitled locations (a practice that happens so quickly and frequently that only history buffs will capture it) that all look exactly the same, with the North and the South almost impossible to differentiate.  We have no personal stake in them, and there's not a character involved that we've come to like, root for, care about or otherwise feel invested in whether he or she lives or dies.  </div> <bR> <div> A late cameo by Ted Turner, who produced the film, seals the deal: even by standard TV criteria, this film is still junk and wouldn't even pass muster as a movie of the week.  It's a real howler - a bill of goods so hollow and phony, and so removed from anything real to say about war, country and life - that <I>Gods and Generals</I> might well end up the worst film of 2003.     </div> <bR> <div> 216 Minutes (plus intermission)</div> <div> Rated PG-13 for Battle Sequences</div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="621" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="617"><div> <B>Lee Shoquist © 2003</B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="617"><div> <A HREF="mailto:leeshoquist@aol.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:leeshoquist@aol.com"><U><U>Leeshoquist.com</U></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>