What is the worst war movie ever made?

My Brain | 6/25/02 | Burkeman1

[Burkeman1]

What is the worst war movie you have ever seen? Your reasons can be political, realism, historical innaccuracy, or a mixture but what is the worst?

[Burkeman1]

Yes- they are bad- especially how some of them totally ignore the things like air and depth pressure.

[PJ-Comix]

Is that about the black soldiers in Viet Nam?

No. It had an Norwegian boxer actor in Korea. He beat Floyd Patterson for the heavyweight crown but his name and the name of the movie escapes me. It was really bad.

[xrp]

I didn't see Pearl Harbour, but that would qualify as the worst ever.

Reasons:

Ben Affleck
Commerical promotions I saw of the movie that had Japanese planes bombing Spruance class destroyers. Did this actually make the movie? Spruance class DDs did not start entering service in the US Navy until the mid 1970s.

[Burkeman1]

What was that movie made by Singleton that was supposed to be the "black" Viet-Nam experience but was so bad not even the NYT gave it a good review?

[mamelukesabre]

Hahahahahaha

Now I gotta see it just to see the beards.

[PJ-Comix]

I was going to say "West Side Story" but didn't want the flame so I'll go with "the Longest Day.

The problem with "The Longest Day" is that it made the Normandy Invasion look like a fun adventure with all sorts of comical moments. Darryl Zanuck said he wanted it to be an anti-war movie but I didn't see that at all. It was the invasion of Normandy by an all-star cast saying and doing all kinds of funny things.

[Teacher317]

In Love and War

[The KG9 Kid]

The Green Berets.

Completely stupid and ridiculous. Awful plot. Terrible models. Some of the worst dialogue ever. The low point of John Wayne's career.

Loads of fun to watch. :D

[OC_Steve]

I just watched Gettysburg a couple of weeks ago and kept waiting for either Tom Berringer or Martin Sheen's beards to come unglued. I also laughed at the Reinactors trying to act. I was better as "Sailor #3" in my Jr. High production of South Pacific!!!

[Burkeman1]

Oh - I agree. "The Longest Day" was just stupid. And I don't mean you need the blood and guts like in "Ryan" to portray the horror of war but this film was just stupid all around. Not the worst by far however. Some of the films made during WWII were even worse.

[parsifal]

"I realized that not one shred of the how's, the why's, the motivation and training of and for this offensive, there was NOTHING in the movie but an incoherent lurch from violent and bloody scene to violent and bloody scene."

that is not the fault of the movie. I think that accurately describes Monty's "brillian" game plan.
parsy.

[Bahbah]

Since your opinion coinsides with mine with respect to "A Bridge Too Far", you are obviously very intelligent. Just about every "body parts are about to go flying" scene was so telegraphed, I had plenty of time to cover my eyes after the first three.

[PJ-Comix]

WAIT!!!

I have the all-time WORST movie ever made. I'm surprised I didn't think of it right off the bat:

"Battle Of The Bulge."

In addition to being completely inaccurate historically, it even had the premise that a Boston police detective saved the allies because of his detective work. On top of that, the German panzers were nothing but painted over Sherman tanks. Horrible acting by Telly Savales as a tank driver. Robert Shaw incorporated every silly German war stereotype into his character of Colonel Hessler.

If you have ever seen the "Battle Of The Bulge," then you have to agree that it was the WORST war movie ever made.

[blue jeans]

A Bridge Too Far as it was a movie WAY TOO LONG!!!

[Only good part was when they blew up the bridge as Elliot Gould's men were running towards it.... for those who remember it.. and weren't asleep by that point!]

On the flip side.... one of the best of all time was....

The Guns of Navarone

[Billthedrill]

Oh, I have a trump, but I bet nobody here's ever seen it - a fetid little production named Night Wars. It was a Vietnam-vet-psycho-post-traumatic-stress exploitation flick that featured two stumblebums wondering why their vet buddies were mysteriously dying in their sleep. I swear I am not making a word of this up.

It turns out they are having flashbacks in their dreams in which an evil Sergeant (weren't they all?) is killing them off and it takes in real life. So these guys load a hotel room up with enough ordnance to take on Germany and do what everyone does before going into deadly combat - go to sleep. Riiiiight...

In their dreams the, er, "patrol" is a bunch of longhaired goofs who are clumped like little girls traipsing down a trail in some Mexican - er, "Vietnamese" - forest (great combat interval - get nine guys in the frame at once), kill sentries by pulling their hair straight back (it evidently breaks necks in Guadalajara) and then, after about 70 minutes of this incredible bilge, in the climactic chase scene the .45-carrying hero ducks behind a tree, pops his magazine out to check the ammo, and there, resplendent in a 35mm closeup, resides the crimped ends of a blank cartridge. Priceless!

I once bet a Navy Chief and a Seal a case of beer that they couldn't watch the whole thing without breaking up or screaming at the screen. They didn't last 20 minutes.

[mamelukesabre]

Oh, he made one worse than that. I forget the name of it, but in this movie, he played an oriental warrior, like ghengis khan or attila the hun, or tamerlane, or something like that.

[Pompah]

Gettysburg had the worst fake beards ever seen.
Agreed. Also the worst portrayal of Gen.Robert E. Lee that will ever be seen.

[Pharmboy]

Operation Mad Ball--1957

Jack Lemmon

Ernie Kovacs

[Busywhiskers]

I would say the worst was "Apocalypse Now" except for the air cav assault at the beginning.
I would also nominate "Starwars: The Attack of the Clones". Surely one of the most tedious, boring films ever made.

[Jagdgewehr]