Full Metal Jacket (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray) [4K UHD]

Great, thanks!

I can watch this movie every day.It is one of the best vietnam military movies of its time

What a great classic movie from Stanley Kubrick about guys going through boot camp to Vietnam. Great actors you will recognize who do a fantastic job! Reminds me of my days of going through boot camp….

When this film was first released, I wasn’t interested in seeing it (though I did see Platoon). At that age in my life, 19-20, I wasn’t yet a SK fan like I am now. When I eventually saw it, I thought it was interesting, but it took me several viewings and a few courses at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh (RIP) to fully appreciate Kubrick’s messages and symbolism. This film probably has the most subtle and not so subtle messages and symbolism out of all of his movies. Every time I think of a certain scene , or watch the film again, and consider the details therein, I realize there’s another thing I missed. There is so much here to analyze. The Kubrick Site is the best resource or collection of resources and articles that I know of, that cover his movies. There is at least 1 article there about FMJ. But an entire book (300 pages, say) would be the bare minimum amount of space necessary to cover everything just in this movie. As far as its realism, I have spoken with at least 1 Vietnam veteran who said that this is the best movie about that war. The most realistic. There are several pop culture events or news items that are mentioned. Such as CBS News reporter Walter Cronkite stating that the war is not winnable. He really did say that, so I’m not spoiling anything for you. The one issue about this film, that SK definitely intended, is the racist jokes. And there are a lot. A LOT. Young people of today, who are more sensitive to such “humor”, are more likely to be offended. Although, in my case, even when I told them 40 years ago, I knew they were distasteful (I stopped telling them before I graduated from high school. No one is perfect). There are also a few lines of dialogue that reference other movies (Apocalypse Now, for one) which may or may not be intentional on SK’s part. The film is quite brutal, in several respects (violence, racist jokes, racism specifically concerning Asian people, sexist jokes and observations). This movie is definitely not for those with weak stomachs or who are easily offended. But none of SK’s films starting with Lolita are (other than 2001, and Dr. Strangelove, more or less). Highly recommended, if any of the 3 things I mentioned in the subject line are of interest to you.

Classic movie that can be watched time and time again! Gotta love this film!

Before Full Metal Jacket was released on HD DVD, I refused to watch it because for some reason Stanley Kubrick's intentions were to distribute it in Full Screen rather than the way it was filmed in Widescreen on DVD. Now that the HD DVD version is released and in Widescreen I finally got a chance to see the film, and I'll tell you my thoughts. This is one of the most realistic war movies I've ever seen. It's about 2 hours long in length but it feels like an hour. It shows how kids were broken down and built back up into killing machines. Some of the things they say can be disturbing when describing their rifle. The movie will often shock you, make you laugh, and depress you. Lee Ermey will blow you away with his role as Gunny Hartman the drill sargent. Visually, this is a so-so picture. While most of the film has a decent clarity, there is also an undeniable amount of grain during parts of the film. This isn't because it's an HD DVD, it's also the same case with the Blu-Ray version. HD DVD's have an incredible reputation with visual clarity, Blu-Ray on the other hand... well, I suppose this title fits in perfectly with other Blu-Ray movies when it comes to visual clarity. Warner Brothers could have done more than they did, perhaps in the distant future it'll be revisited. However, since the film is so good and absorbing and finally seeing it in Widescreen with some high definition at all makes it an incredible experience. Overall, if you're just getting an HD DVD player all I can say is that there's many other titles that have a groundbreaking showcase of high definition BUT if you want a movie that's truly a classic and will blow you away with the lack of real visual clarity at times, this movie is it.

When I teach my film classes, I find that Kubrick (along with Hitchcock) is one of the most misunderstood filmmakers of the last century. Why is an essential component of this filmmaker (as well as others) lost in the translation? Part of it seems to be the separation between film history/criticism in the United States, where film enthusiasts seem content with the film alone, and forget that, prior to the internet, movies existed within a network of criticism that extended from the Westcoast Studios to the Eastcoast critics, and stretched overseas, where brilliant essayists like Truffaut were able to pick apart the latest offerings in the pages of the Cahiers du Cinema. These filmmakers used the theater as an extension of a critical dialogue that helped explain their core philosophies; the New york Critics and European Essayists were really cinematic linguists who helped to make sense of the "linguistic" complexity of a medium whose essential grammar seems to be more or less intuitive, both concrete and abstract. The transition to more escapist fare (at least in the late 70s studio Hollywood system) has meant a transition in the critical world as well; with the popularity of the Cinematic Essayist waning in the last 20 years, being instead replaced by schtick and the "every man" approach to film reviews, and a cruel thumbs-up, thumbs-down approach -- more or less a symptom of our collective attention deficit. While these approaches are necessary, the lack of educated "cinematic linguists" is resulting in the loss of understanding when it comes to our most important filmmakers, of which Kubrick is undoubtedly one. For instance, it surprises most people to know that one of our most important stylists considered himself to be an "objective director." Kubrick's minimalist, nuanced, distanced style is really the product of his core philosophy which was to "observe" rather than to "impart." Kubrick aligned himself with documentarians who used aesthetic restraint in crafting ethnographic narratives. In fact, if you really study the man -- his writings, his interviews -- you will find that his entire career was really a quest for cinematic truth. He constantly struggled against his own interpretation and impressions of events, to try to give a multi-faceted view of reality and drama, of which he believed that narrative itself was really an unnatural hallucination imposed on a series of random events by the mind's need to rationalize and organize. Kubrick struggled against not only studio narrative -- the classic three-act structure -- which he found predictable and as pedestrian as an overly familiar nursery rhyme; but he also resisted the narrative of the mind, its need to simplify, reduce, and impose. Even more than that, Kubrick struggled against the medium itself. In an interview, Kubrick opined about the need to import rocks onto the set of Full Metal Jacket, to acquire the realism he knew would be beyond his reach with simulation. Sounding a lot like Jorge Luis Borges speaking about the problems of a truly realistic map, he explained the natural processes that would go into the formation of those rocks, with which Hollywood verisimilitude just could not compete. Importing those rocks is proof of Kubrick's devotion to objectivity, which he felt was constantly compromised and corrupted by the cinematic medium itself (never mind that those rocks existed on a fabricated sound stage in London -- but Kubrick's philosophy on realism/formalism was always filled with contradictions). It's interesting to note that critical interpretation of Stanley Kubrick largely fails because it excludes the man's own take on his own material. Never being one to shut down another's opinion, Kubrick nevertheless had very strong and opinionated feelings about his own films, opinions that seem incredibly out-of-step with popular interpretation of his work. I would like to remind the reader (whoever has been kind enough to stay with me thus far), an obvious fact, that will seem more obvious in retrospect -- Kubrick had a lifelong fascination with the propagandistic nature of cinema as well as the theme of social brainwashing. A better word for brainwashing is "conditioning" as it's broader and encompasses what Kubrick felt was the most consistent theme running throughout the entirety of his work. Kubrick was obsessed with how man's psyche could be conditioned -- through media, through government, through aristocracy, through peer pressure, etc. And in the end, he was fascinated by the struggle between an individual's innate nature and the outside, coercive forces that threatened to eliminate his nature or suppress it once and for all. "Full Metal Jacket" has the observationalist impulse of a documentary, the lyric quality of silent cinema, the rigorous technical prowess of Max Ophuls, and the elliptical, bifurcated narrative of an art house movie. In light of these influences, "Full Metal Jacket" is less an unconventional, frustrating war movie, than a logical realization of Kubrick's core aesthetic principles as applied to the Viet Nam conflict. That being the case, what unites the two "halves" of Full Metal Jacket is the theme of "social conditioning." A soldier is like a full metal jacket -- his outer shell is formed by a rigid, brutalizing, indifferent, nearly industrial process, and yet, somewhere beneath is the soft material that can prove pliant and powerful in the wrong hands. Viewed from this perspective, the second half of "Full Metal Jacket" is not as off-putting as some have unfairly suggested. For those who are intimately familiar with the man's philosophies, the "second half" is a natural consequence of the first half, and succeeds brilliantly in emphasizing Kubrick's fascination with man's duality -- a duality that becomes more apparent in a sustained and prolonged conflict between two national dualities. (If you really want insight into the work of Kubrick or other filmmakers, do not divorce them from their influences, or their own philosophies which exist in interviews, private notes, and other secondary and third sources).

FULL METAL JACKET is by far the BEST WAR MOVIE ever made in modern times. In my opinion, it also one of the TOP 20 MOVIES to ever hit the silver screen. Stanley Kubrick is a cinema genius. The casting for FMJ was absolutely superb. Full Metal Jacket is completely void of covert political statements and ego maniacal actors-looking to interject their own brand of heroism. (See Fury and Inglourious Basterds for that comical nonsense) Kubrick cast lesser known actors, who knew exactly how to portray REAL infantrymen. It's been said the rich use political privilege to escape war. Meanwhile, poor kids are forced to defend American freedoms. Kubrick takes us on an odyssey that begins w/basic training in the unrelenting heat of Paris Island, SC. He soon switches gear and shows us some of the same men thrust into the savage jungles of Cambodia, Vietnam. We witness teams of men coming together for the greater good of the corp. As for the ridiculous reviewer who claims the film dehumanizes the Vietnamese people? WTF? He is a millennial-snowflake.....ignorant of 2 of the most maniacal/mass murderers to ever have lived on this planet. Ho Chi Minh & Pol Pot committed atrocities in S. Vietnam that would make Hitler look mild. FMJ has a dynamic cast. The film portrays how WARS are really handled. Kubrick doesn't shy away from absurdities, insanity & patriotism. All three of which can be intertwined & difficult to differentiate. Vietnam was truly a quagmire. Much like Afghanistan is today. He demonstrates how young-naive men, who come from all backgrounds (mostly poor), races and creeds are transformed into killing machines. Some ultimately fighting for their own lives in combat. Kubrick gives you the feel of what it's like to be a Marine. The Marine corp has always been the 1st to go where the action is, not run away form it. Full Metal Jacket is not a film for this new PC-WOKE generation (I'm sure they'd be traumatized and head to the nearest safe space). Kubrick even manages to provide us a taste of flippant humor while the troops they are engaged in a fire fight w/a sniper. America will always have one common objective during military missions abroad. Kill the enemy and bring back home as many of out troops as humanly possible. The last scene is truly unforgettable.