It's been a while since I watched Apocalypse Now and while the missus was away, my penchant for classic cinema came out to play.
Picking up the Blu-ray edition of Apocalypse Now, featuring the 1979 original masterpiece and the 2001 'Redux' editon, along with a whole host of extras, seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. And how...
In case you haven't seen the movie (and why ever not?!) the film tells the story of one man's journey/descent into madness and darkness to complete his personal quest - effectively mirrored by the Herculean efforts of the director to actually get the film made. 16 months in production, typhoons destroying sets, lead actors replaced at the last minute, lead actors overweight, lead actors suffering a heart attack. The list goes on and on and on.
So after taking the plunge and viewing Redux for the first time in all it's 196-minute glory (no credits, either, it's all movie) it's still the same self-indulgent, mesmerising, brilliant, gibberish as I remembered, just 50 minutes longer. Hands down, a classic worthy of the title.
For the uninitiated, I would stick with the 1979 original. Clocking in at a more reasonable 146 minutes, it's not quite as torturous/mental as Redux and is actually the better for it.
I thoroughly recommend the HD presentation too, it's a stunner.
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