Mini Review #36: Saving Private Ryan (Patreon)

Wow. The sheer scale of this movie at times was off the charts. The opening sequence alone deserves all the recognition it gets as the logistics alone to create that scene must have been a nightmare. So immersive in every way from the excellent and grounded camera work that makes you feel like a soldier, to the intimidating sound design that has you thinking German tanks are monsters. The movie is almost 3 hours long but it felt like 2 hours because I wan enjoying it/so immersed into it so much. I also really liked the parallels this movie drew from the start and the end of the film. Characters would do certain things or scenes would be shot in such a way that they reflected earlier events which was really cool.

Overall, a really well made war movie with some of the most harrowing and grandest scale battle sequences put to film. Even with that, it still doesn't forget the intimate character moments and the movie keeps reminding us that these soldiers, are humans too.