What a load of Hollywood horseshit. John Woo is a fucking moron. Fucking MI:2 sucked major ass and now he's making a mockery of American War movies.
Nicolas Cage plays Sgt. "Joe," who has a tommygun that never needs to be reloaded unless it gives him an excuse to use his 1911 which has a 'hi-cap' 10+ round magazine. Joe is very good with both these guns, he uses them to kill screaming 'nips' who are always running at you with their rifles, but never actualy shoot at you. He runs, he jumps, he fires from the hip, one handed, sideways, and still manages to kill everyone in the area. He even can uses his 1911 to kill 7 badguys with like 3 shots!
It even used fucking STOCK FOOTAGE of battleships firing! JESUS CHRIST!
It has the 'nuclear' bazooka too, one bazooka rocket takes out an entire underground bunker with a 100 foot high blast
Did I mention they used 50 star US flags?
Also did the marines EVER use the 'drum' magazine on a tompson (or even with the fore pistol grips?) , especialy in 1943?
Some classic war movie cliches, they describe them perfectly:
No one will shoot the hero and the battle will even come to a stand still while the hero cries in agony and curse that "it should've been him" when his best friend steps on the land mine/get blown up/ dies charging the machine gun nest. The battle will resume as soon as the hero gets over his grief and gets angry. The hero will be victorious within 45 seconds of becoming angry.
There has to be a scene involving giving chocolate to children or nylons/cigarettes to women in a WW II movie. The soldiers never try to take advantage of the situation by asking for sexual favors in return.
Major characters never run out of ammunition, nor do they ever have to reload. (If the movie
does make them reload, they never have to actually carry any spare ammo until that scene)
Bad-guy hand grenades make noise and smoke, but no real damage; good-guy hand grenades are devastating but selective; they will destroy tanks, but won't hurt the thrower, even if he drops one on his toe. Bad-guy grenades used by good guys become good-guy grenades, and vice versa.
Cop/soldier haunted by nightmares/guilt of not being able to save partner/girlfriend/comrade.
Here are some reviews I think sum up how bad this is...
Originally scheduled for release in June of 2001, in was pushed back to November because of some last minute editing director John Woo felt was necessary. However, after the September 11 attacks, it's release date was pushed back yet again, this time to June 14, nearly one year after its original release date. Alas, "Windtalkers" should have remained on the shelves, never to see the same light of day as other films. Why? Because this piece of crap deserves nothing but a quick and reckless destruction.
Nicolas Cage stars as Sergeant Joe Enders who, after getting his entire platoon killed by the enemy, fakes being well in order to get another assignment. So, the Marines charge him with watching after a Navajo code talker (Adam Beach), acting as sort of a babysitter to the Native American soldier. And, he is instructed to protect the code at all costs, even if it means killing the code talker in the process. Christian Slater, Mark Ruffalo, and Noah Emmerich play fellow code talkers and Peter Stormare is the leader of the platoon.
So, what's wrong with the movie, you are probably wondering? Well, here you go: (1) Nicolas Cage is terrible. He could have done such a better job and it feels as if he doesn't know why the hell he is even in the picture; (2) the fight scenes are awful. Ugh. They looked completely staged and unauthentic; (3) cliché after cliché after cliché. How many times must we watch the same old redundant bullcrap without growing immune to their persuasions; (4) this was essentially an action flick set to the backdrop of World War II. John Woo tried sneaking in stuff about the Navajo way of life, but surrounded it with too much shooting and corny dialogue; (5) Noah Emmerich must have forgot how to act since "The Truman Show" because he was laughable; (6) this film is more comical than action packed or dramatic--Nicolas Cage keeps receiving letters from a girl back home who has absolutely zero relevance to the plot, other than to add a few extra minutes of crap. And, Christian Slater has a role that most other stars of his worth would have turned down in a heartbeat because they knew it was useless crap.
I hope that clarified why this is the worst film I have seen this year, and the worst war movie I have ever seen, and that covers a lot of crappy ground. I was extremely pissed off after watching this film because I had expected so much from it; I thought it might be John Woo's big break into serious drama. Now, I realize that John Woo really has very minimal talent as a director of anything other than explosions and pyrotechnics. This film should dominate the Golden Raspberry Awards, and since I am a licensed member of the Razzies, you can bet your ass it will get my vote.
So, this is my final plea: go see something else. Avoid this immense waste of time and catch something with some substance to it, something that doesn't look like it was through together at the last minute like some dinner party stew. Maybe John Woo should have not edited it that final time. Maybe then it would have been something. Then again, it would take a hell of a lot more than some editing to fix this stinky load of crap. The only thing "Windtalkers" spoke to was my stomach.
Damn you Spielberg. After 'Saving Private Ryan' most film-makers are still playing catch up when it comes to war films and their fierce reality. Serious gore and violence are now the order of the day, and God help anyone trying to douse their film in casual patriotism or standard cliches from the war genre (hello Randall Wallace and 'We Were Soldiers!). Of the latest rash of war films only 'Black Hawk Down' has really made a significant impact, and that's mostly due to it's ability to tell a story about a battle no-one really knew about. 'Windtalkers' unfortunately has no new tricks up its sleeve.
All it has to rely on is bombast, cliche and a very rare spark of inspiration.
'Windtalkers' is the true story of how Navajho Indians in WW2 were used as code talkers against the Japanese who knew nothing of their language. Due to their importance to the war effort they were assigned to officers who had orders to protect the code 'at all costs'. To kill them rather than let them be captured. One such task falls to haunted Joe Enders (Nicholas Cage) who is given responsibility of Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) as his company moves up Saipan. Also along is Pete 'Ox' Anderson (Christian Slater) and racist Chick (Noah Emmerich).
It's a fascinating basis for a story (even if historically there's little truth in the order that they had to kill the Navjho rather then let them be captured) as a theme of duty versus friendship is explored, but unfortunately Woo goes nowhere near depth, opting instead for pretty explosions and lots of bangs. Could this be the film where Woo's limitations are exposed? Well after this, 'Mission Impossible 2', 'Broken Arrow' etc it's hard to see where the hype for him comes from. All he seems to do is lots of slo-mo action and people flying around. In slo-mo. He uses so much slo-mo you can't help wondering if those scenes were left at their normal speed if his films would be actually last longer than an hour.
Woo certainly has no idea of how to avoid war cliches. Young soldier pining for home who asks his friend to send his wedding ring home should he die? Yep, he's in here and he obviously dies. That point couldn't have been more obvious if he had painted a giant bullseye on his back and wandered around the battleground shouting "Hey Japs, here I am! Shoot me I've got a life to go back home for!"
Racist soldier who will inevitably have his life saved by one of the Navajhos and undergo a regretful transformation of his former ways? You betcha.
Some late night campfire bonding complete with harmonica and flute playing? Oh, Mr Woo you're spoiling us.
And the wretched cliches spread to all the characters. Gee, Enders hates himself after his previous company all died under his command. Wonder if he'll initially hate Ben but grudgingly grow to like him thus compromising his mission? Well, duh...
Cage, unfortunately has little to do here apart from looking pained. Whether this was intentional or just his reaction to the script we can't know. Suffice to say, his way of showing inner torment is to look like he's suffering from a hangover. Tom Hanks in 'Saving Private Ryan' this is not. Only once, in a graveyard scene does he approach anything near his talent, most of the time his performance ranging from dull and obvious to giggle inducing.
Adam Beech does no better, looking insufferably smug and pleased with himself all the way through for some reason. I swear to God if I had to see him staring into the middle distance just once more, while he related some old folk tale from home, I was going to set off a grenade myself to take us all out of our misery.
Only Christian Slater gets anywhere near a decent character or performance, but like I said, his character gets nothing much to do apart from play the harmonica.
Even in the battle scenes there's nothing new. Yes, gore and grittiness is the new thing, but here..well it's just not new. Especially after all the battle scenes blur into one. Run up some hills, while a bunch of characters we either don't know or don't care about, get blown up. The first one is good, the fifth one? Zzzzzzz...
And nothing, but NOTHING, excuses the horrendous shot of blatantly recolourised footage of warships firing at sea. Honestly who the hell thought they could get away with that? 50 year old footage right in the middle of a sheeny blockbuster. Woo, how much Sake have you been drinking? Have you shot your editors? Someone should be for that.
'Saving Private Ryan' stripped away all the gloss from Hollywood depictions of war and thrust the horrendous reality into our face. 'Windtalkers' would love to do that but mostly fails. There are noble attempts, Enders self-loathing manifesting itself in a comment he started off as a soldier of Christ but changed sides somewhere along the way. There's also some gut-wrenching close combat and shocking savagery on the battlefield.
Unfortunately a lot of the effect is negated by Woo shooting like it's the most exciting game of kid soldiers ever. I obviously wasn't in WW2 but I'm pretty sure there weren't many forward rolls or backflips in the heat of combat.
And I didn't realise that we won WW2 because the Japanese were such bad shots. Seriously. While Cage and co. can leap into a Japanese foxhole and take out an entire platoon with one burst of their machine gun, the Japanese would seem to need to be standing right in front of someone to even just graze them.
At one point Enders is running with Yahzee slung across his back, while being chased by about a dozen soldiers. And they can only hit the dirt around his feet. This sums 'Windtalkers' up really. It would love to be profound, realistic and heartbreaking. Instead it's shallow, silly and annoying. And considering the 'talent' involved that's a crime. 'Windtalkers'? It's just a bag of hot air.
Well, where should I start? This film is so monumentally bad it almost defies description, but here goes:
I normally have a lot of respect for Nick Cage, he plays his roles well, but in this he seems to play every cliché in the book. He is Sergeant Joe Enders, a man seemingly so disturbed by the loss of his platoon that he's popping pills every five minutes, and constantly losing himself in flashbacks. He can't hear one minute, and is fine the next, and develops a love interest so cheesy, clichéd and predictable that you half expect something more interesting to be going on... But it isn't. Adam Beach plays a reasonably convincing Ben Yahzee, a Navaho Indian who signed up to help protect his country as a code-talking radio operator, but isn't quite ready for combat. We all know the drill here, it's the seasoned disaffected veteran and fresh faced rookie "getting to know you" double act that we've seen a million times in a million different scenarios.
I defy anyone not to roll their eyes back in their heads and say "oh my god" at least once in this movie. Peter Stormare's attempt at an American accent should get most people going, but if that doesn't do it for you how about a Harmonica / Weird Native American flute thing duet, or the tedious love letter scenes, in fact just about every scene elicited the same response: WHY?
To call this film derivative is being generous, to even compare it to another film is doing that film a disservice, Imagine World War 2 being fought by the most idiotic bunch of soldiers you've ever seen. The gun battles are hilarious, they are so unrealistic you wonder who the hell said "yes, that looks good, let's put that in the movie" because whoever it was sure smokem um peace pipe that day. Nick Cage seems to be the only person who can actually fire a gun, and boy can he fire it, he mows down at least 8 people in one scene with a single clip, holding down the trigger, making his game face and spraying wildly into the air. You can see in some scenes he's not even pointing the gun at them and they're Falling over dead. Apparently getting your whole unit killed gives you some kind of super powers that allow you to run headlong into the enemy and shoot anyone without ever getting hit. The explosions and effects are all very cheap, it looks more like a fireworks display than a battle most of the time. In one scene, a battleship shells the land from out at sea. It literally looks like someone's taken some footage of a battleship firing from CNN, and spliced it into the movie.
I could go on for many many more pages about all the bad points of this movie but I won't, suffice to say AVOID IT LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT.
This has to be the worst war movie I have ever seen in my entire life (and probably will be for the rest of my life.) I seriously can't see how critics think John Woo is a good director, because he isn't. The movie is about a hoakie war guy who has to protect a Navajo Indian also known as a Windtalker. The movie SHOULD be about the Navajo Indians and their duty. But it IS about Nicholas Cage's jerk character. This movie is so full of flaws it will make your head explode. Here are a few: (SPOILERS) 1. Nicholas Cage had a grenade blown up right next to him, yet he has a slightly bad hearing problem and a wobbly leg. He should be blown to bits and pieces. 2. Cage seems to be very lucky considering he hardly gets hit and hits about a million Japanese. 3. Cage was shot in the leg twice and is still able to carry Adam Beach many yards. 4. There are no such things as Japanese samurais in the Japanese Army. Think about it, big men with AK-47s, a skinny guy with a sword. Who's going to win? (END SPOILERS) Those are only a couple of flaws. Also, Woo goes nuts with explosions. Which are pretty fake. A major disappointment in the war genre.
I wonder how many WW2 vets are turning in their graves...
This is probably the WORST war film I've ever been subjected too, if I had not been part of a group, I would have most probably walked out on the film.
Normally, my friends and I are very talkative and love to debate our favourite movies, Windtalkers, my GF, my two best friends and I walked out of the theater, and just didn't say anything, we didn't want to aknowledge that travesty.
Jon Woo, get your ass out of the director's chair when it comes to movies, you want to make a Hong Kong Blood Opera, I will not stop you, but don't insult the heroes of World War II.
A Native American on my discussion board said he's boycotting the movie because "it's a movie where an American saves an Indian, where are the movie cameras to cover where they screwed our women, took our land, gave us smallpox and got us loaded on alcohol for a few centuries?" I tend to agree with the fellow.
Also, I never knew one Marine could be such a deadly weapon, Cage slaps a magazine into his Thompson, burns down a half dozen Japanese RUNNING with the gun at the same time, drops the mag, puts a fresh one in, then repeats afte r awhile, a pile of dead Japanese soldiers and he's unscathed with no ammo left, fascinating isn't it?
semi-Romantic sideplot: Uh-Huh, helping a bitter marine with impaired hearing get back into combat so he can kill people forms a special bond of love doesn't it?
Acting: What's that?
Fight Scenes: Cinematography was allright, but the way he set it up was abysmal at times, he's got no respect for what happened in World War II, period.
Realism: Again, what is that in this film?
All in all, a travesty of filmmaking.
I'm not a huge movie buff either, I appreciate a good action film that's a tad corny, but this, I don't want a refund on the money as much as the time that was RIPPED from me.
Yet another movie lesson we don't need: 'How Genres Recycle' The painful deluge of sex comedies that's washed through the theaters over the past two years can be directly attributed to the popularity of American Pie. The new-wave slasher renaissance of 2000 was the direct result of Wes Craven's Scream. Currently, Hollywood is in a 'war-movie' mood, and (thanks to the much-discussed Act I of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan) the mantra seems to be: Gore is Good.
Windtalkers is one of those utterly predictable and ultimately shallow "war flicks" that tries to put an important face on all the carnage, yet 85% of the movie consists of blood for shock value and explosions for the "gee whiz" factor. Not since the 1985 Oscar-winner Missing in Action 2: The Beginning have I seen this many ridiculous "grenade gags". You know the drill: hero throws grenade, grenade explodes, several enemies go hurtling through the air like baseballs. That the Chuck Norris "grenade gag" occurs about 7 times during Windtalkers is a good indication of how serious-minded the film is.
Nicolas Cage (opting to work in blank zombie mode this time out) plays Sgt. Joe Enders, an commander who has recently lost his entire platoon (it was his fault, of course) to a wide array of colorful deaths. After stewing about with a bum ear at the local vet's hospital, Enders is given a new assignment; he's to be paired up with a Native American 'codetalker' who will be able to relay important coordinates and recipes without them pesky Japanese listening in. Enders is ordered to protect codetalker Yahzee at all costs...unless of course they're both captured...in which case Enders would be forced to protect the code (ie - kill Yahzee) in overtly dramatic fashion.
Nothing sums up a good war epic like a plot than can be described in one sentence, and Windtalkers nails that one plot device into the blood-soaked ground. It's obvious that by adding the whole 'noble savage' and 'cure racism through warfare' themes, the filmmakers were hoping to add a little meat to this essentially insubstantial affair, but the "code" stuff is given perhaps 20 minutes screen time, and the rest of what's on display isn't exactly anything to hoot and holler for.
When you say a film has "lots of action", that's almost always a compliment. But in the case of Windtalkers, the numerous battle sequences are choppy, uninvolving, and more than a little derivative. Aside from the aforementioned grenade gag, Windtalkers hosts a laundry list of war flick cliches that should have been retired along with Ronald Reagan. If I told you there was one racist soldier who refuses to accept the Navajo soldiers, would that stun you? Or would you make the next logical connection - that the racist soldier would soon be on the receiving end of some good ol' Navajo heroics. This same exact plot hook is used in every war movie! Do they really think moviegoers sitting through Windtalkers haven't seen The Patriot or Glory?
I digress. Lazy screenwriting is as predictable as tax season, and about as enjoyable. To be completely honest, I find a screenplay littered with one yawning cliche after another an insult to my intelligence, so the 'other stuff' better be pretty damn good.
In this case, the 'other stuff' is nearly as bad. Though Windtalkers certainly has a copious amount of battleground explosions and flying bullets, very few of these sequences actually pound your pulse. There's the indefinable little internal oomph you get when you're watching a great action sequence, and I didn't get that sensation once during Windtalkers. The action scenes seem too polished, too rote, and way too overbaked. Much like in the vastly superior Black Hawk Down, the unending sea of enemies pour forth from the jungle like so many Romero zombies. Our soldiers plow right through them and more pop up.
The performances are uniformly acceptable, with only Cage's incessant glower a consistent bore. Adam Beach (Mystery Alaska) plays the dimensionless Yahzee with all the charm he can muster, but the character is written to be a Navajo Superman Saint, so he doesn't have too many shades to work with. Christian Slater (Heathers) adds some color as another 'code protector', while Jason Isaacs (The Patriot) shows up just just long enough to make you wish he had more scenes. Likable character actors Peter Stormare, Mark Ruffalo and Noah Emmerich get to put on camoflague and play War with the big boys. Good for them.
I don't know why anyone thought John Woo was the right guy for a wartime action drama, but it's clear that Woo works best indoors...and in Hong Kong. His American films (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, Mission: Impossible 2) have all been no better than 'interesting failures', despite what the Box-Office Gods may have to say. (OK, I really dug Face/Off, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good film.) The director's affinity for 'operatic carnage' is given free reign over these WWII battlefields, yet each successive skirmish is as tiresome and paint-by-numberesque as the one before.
A couple of cool jolts and a few tips of the hat to cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball save this one from being a total disaster. Windtalkers is strictly a 'going-through-the-motions' motion picture product, one that's entirely beholden to earlier (and infinitely better) war films.
Is that enough bad reviews to scare you all off?
The bottom line: Windtalkers is just insulting in how bad it is... even from an entertainment standpoint! NONE of the battle sequences were 'action packed' -- people would stand around and talk and shit while the battle seemed to 'pause' for them.
The only thing this movie does is make the original Smokie and the Bandit series look good.
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