I almost thought this was going to be a waste of 2 and a half hours when I realised about a third in that I’d already seen it, but I was ultimately quite surprised by the number of times it caught me emotionally off guard this time round. Though there’s a big part of me that doesn’t like the way this movie feels like it was made for the sole purpose of getting more Americans to sign up to the Army – and to that end I imagine it worked pretty well for some – it’s somehow possible for me to disconnect this story from the reality of war and get something else out of it, really get swept away on an emotional journey. It looks wonderful, the battle scenes are crazy bombastic and bloody, and John Williams’ score – sounding at times like James Horner, at times like Ennio Morricone, and amazingly rarely like himself – carries the whole thing perfectly. Not perfection at all, but I could easily watch it again and again.

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