Standard-Examiner staff
There are bound to be comparisons between Stanley Kubrick's new film, "Full Metal Jacket," and Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning "Platoon." But such comparisons are invalid, since the two films take completely different approaches to the same subject: Vietnam.
"Full Metal Jacket" is a film that deserves equal attention, not out-of-hand dismissal as simply another Vietnam War drama. It is an astonishingly powerful movie -- a film that strikes terror in the gut and sadness in the heart.
There is brilliance on display in "Full Metal Jacket," which possesses both the technical mastery and flair for the ironic that are Kubrick's trademarks. His view of Vietnam and the decision-makers who "ran" the war are every bit as biting and sarcastic as was his treatment of similar characters and institutions in "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." War is the ultimate madness, and Kubrick is very adept at showing us how we come to participate in such mass lunacy.
