That is the big problem with the movie. I thought Gettysburg needed tighter editing, too. Maxwell lingers over too much. Like the scene in Gettysburg where Lee rides amongst the men to great acclaim. It is a powerful moment, but Maxwell doesn't understand the law of diminishing returns. He holds the scene about twice as long as he needs to. In the Pickett's Charge sequence, the preparation takes as long as the charge, and then the charge itself takes forever. He seems to think he has to film all the seqquences in real time. As a result, several scenes were cut from Gettysburg that were needed to advance the story (Lee's scene with Ewell, for example).
In G & G, his tendency to let things go on too long, and to include unnecesary scenes, were very damaging to the film. For instance, we didn't need to see Stonewall's farewell to the Stonewall Brigade. Also, the book on which the film was based (which is way better than the movie), concentrated equally on Lee, Jackson, Chamberlain and Hancock, but it appears that Maxwell decided to concentrate almost entirely on Jackson. The film may as well have been called Mighty Stonewall, to borrow the title of a well-known Jackson biography. Stephen Lang was fabulous as Jackson, but I wish they had included more of Jackson's peculiarities and eccentricities.
Overall, I'd give the movie 2-1/2 to 3 stars, because I'm a history buff, and the recreation of the battle of Fredericksburg alone made it worthwile for me. I will get the DVD. The move is no Citizen Kane, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.. The movie does have some powerful moments. I guess this is a film in which the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
BTW, I do think some of the reviews did overstress the PC viewpoint, particularly Ebert's.
But I am in total agreement with you about the Gettysburg "acclaimation" scene---idiotic. Also, the "Stonewall" death scene took almost as long to kill him as it did in real life!
You know, everyone raved about Lang as Jackson, but I thought he was better as Pickett. BTW, I just finished reading "Last Full Measure" and thought it was fantastic.