Running an A-B comparison indicates to me that this is the same, earlier transfer as the 1999 DVD release. Saving Private Ryan is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and has been anamorphically enhanced for your widescreen-viewing enjoyment. Today, after seeing the film again for the first time in years, I feel that Saving Private Ryan is, if not an absolute masterpiece, an extremely powerful and moving work that stands as one of the greatest war films of this or any era. After watching the film on DVD nearly a year later, my enthusiasm was somewhat tempered but I still felt that it was a great movie. When I first came out of the theater after a screening of Saving Private Ryan, I was convinced that Spielberg had made an absolute masterpiece. I disagree with the assessment that they are caricatures rather than characters if the film took the time to develop each soldier into fully fleshed-out three-dimensional characters, we'd end up with Band of Brothers, and at slightly under three hours the filmmakers just didn't have the time for that.
The other characters are given very little in terms of depth, but the actors portraying them do an excellent job in endearing themselves to the viewer. I find that Captain Miller and, to some degree, Corporal Upham register most strongly as clearly defined and nuanced characters. Each member of Miller's squad has been accused of being little more than caricatures and ethnic stereotypes: the tough-as-nails Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore), the cynical and smart-mouthed Irish Private Reiben (Edward Burns), the scared and green-gilled Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies), the tough-talking but soft-hearted Italian Private Caparzo (Vin Diesel), the brash and sarcastic Jewish Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg), the sensitive medic Private Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), and the Bible verse-spoutin', Southern Private Jackson (Barry Pepper). That of course doesn't mean that everything that follows after the 28-minute mark is exactly crap, does it? The story of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks, in a beautifully mannered and subdued performance) and his squad's trek behind enemy lines in order to locate Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) is a heart-wrenching and compelling tale that succeeds more as a result of its larger moments than its smaller ones. The scene is as mammoth as it is legendary, and in terms of sheer emotional potency and cinematic prowess nothing else in Saving Private Ryan can touch it. The storming of the fortified beaches of Normandy is an entropic nightmare, a vision of chaos and carnage in which Allied infantry managed to not only maintain their sanity with the very real possibility of being killed at a moment's notice, but also successfully break through enemy lines and punch a major hole into Nazi-occupied France. The tale that it develops simply cannot compete with the spectacle and horror of its opening salvo.
Furthermore, it raises the bar for everything in the film that succeeds it, and for many it earmarks the biggest flaw in Saving Private Ryan. It's one of the most gripping cinematic segments ever filmed: unbearable to watch, yet impossible to turn away from. Bullets ripping through flesh, blood flowing in currents, limbs blown off, lives snuffed out in split seconds, and wave after wave of young men mowed down and butchered up as the events of Jtook place. The opening half-hour of Saving Private Ryan told us exactly the type of film for which we were in store. Gone was the sanitized vision of battle we had seen countless times before in film after film. The blockbuster motion picture, which landed director Steven Spielberg has second Academy Award for Best Director, opened in July of 1998 and almost immediately captured the public's attention with its grisly, realistic presentation of the horrors of wartime.
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I don't think anyone is going to complain too much if I don't give an overly in-depth movie review of Saving Private Ryan.
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