Gods and Generals
Y
Feb 18, 2003
This review was written for the theatrical release of "Gods & Generals."
Ten years ago filmmaker Ronald F. Maxwell and media mogul Ted Turner, along with an army of Civil War "re-enactors" and an excellent cast headed by Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee, presented a 255-minute adaptation of Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Killer Angels." "Gettysburg" was a magnificent if flawed epic about the decisive battle of the war that stayed faithful to the original and showed leaders on both sides, illuminating the causes of the conflict, military strategies and tactics, personalities and motivations of the combatants and the terrible cost in human lives.
In their new production "Gods and Generals" -- a prequel to "Gettysburg" and based on the 1996 book written by Shaara's son Jeff -- Maxwell and company have departed greatly from the material to place more emphasis on civilians and a mostly gushing portrait of the Confederacy's Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. But this hardly justifies a running time that's one minute longer than "Gone With the Wind." Shown with an intermission and for long stretches recalling the monumental movie epics of eras past, the surprisingly wide but needs-a-miracle-to-make-a-profit Warner Bros. release is now the initial installment chronologically of a Civil War trilogy that will be completed with the adaptation of Jeff Shaara's "The Last Full Measure."
In broad strokes, the story follows Jackson (Stephen Lang), Lee (Robert Duvall) and Union Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels) as they join the war in 1861, and continues to the months before Gettysburg in early July 1863. "Gods" gives the re-enactors lots of screen time, showing highlights of the battles of Manassas (Bull Run), Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Along with the terrific Daniels (without the distractingly bad mustache this time), C. Thomas Howell as Chamberlain's brother and Kevin Conway as Sgt. Buster Kilrain, Lang is a "Gettysburg" veteran, having played the rebel commander George E. Pickett (only a bit player in this movie).
When the film is in combat mode it retains the sense of authenticity that made the first worth sitting through, but from the start "Gods" has a mighty wind of nostalgia and outright historical mythicizing that doesn't go down easily. Innocent perhaps, but self-indulgence is the only reason to include Sen. Phil Gramm in muttonchops as a member of the Richmond House of Delegates in a schoolbook-simple scene where Virginia secedes from the Union, as well as other showy group sequences that include Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Turner (reprising his cameo role from "Gettysburg," Confederate Col. Waller Tazewell Patton).
Even worse are the occasional long speeches that come from nowhere. As Federal troops cross the Rappahannock River and prepare to fight Lee at Fredericksburg, Chamberlain (a college professor from Maine) recalls Julius Caesar crossing the river into Rome centuries earlier. Jackson prays to God Almighty a lot. And looking at the stars at night does have a payoff when the aurora borealis appears like an omen (or sign of God's approval to some) over the battle-weary armies the night after the horrific slaughter on Marye's Heights. "Gods" also awkwardly, with limited success, includes women, children, slaves and non-officers, all mostly Southern.
Kali Rocha, as Jackson's wife Anna, makes a bigger impression than Mira Sorvino as Fanny Chamberlain, who predicts her husband will survive the war (see "Gettysburg" to know why it's such a good thing he lived till that battle). Rocha pours on the charm and gives Stonewall's prodigious beard loving squeezes. Lydia Jordan is a bundle of cuteness as Jane Corbin, a young girl Jackson shows his gentle, fatherly side to and whose death leads to the religiously inspired solder's one unstoppable display of grief. Donzaleigh Abernathy, as a slave for a Fredericksburg family, and Frankie Faison, as Jackson's black cook and personal valet, are given moments to be strong and noble.
Alas, Jackson's own famous demise in a case of friendly fire near Chancellorsville is the climactic event of "Gods," but it's hard to work up much emotion for the ruthless general Lee relied upon above all others. Nearly missing from the movie at the expense of so much attention paid to Jackson is the Union's Gen. Hancock (Brian Mallon, reprising his role in the first film).
Other than a sequence showing Irish immigrants fighting each other at Fredericksburg, "Gods" never approaches the moving highlight of "Gettysburg," where Hancock's best friend and Confederate enemy Armistead (played so memorably by Richard Jordan in the first film) passionately evokes the tragedy of a nation torn asunder.
GODS AND GENERALS
Warner Bros. Pictures
Ted Turner Pictures presents an Antietam Filmworks production
Credits: Screenwriter-producer-director: Ronald F. Maxwell; Executive producers: Ted Turner, Robert Katz, Robert Rehme, Moctesuma Esparza, Mace Neufeld; Director of photography: Kees Von Oostrum; Production designer: Mchael Z. Hanan; Editor: Corky Ehlers; Music: John Frizzell, Randy Edelman; Casting: Joy Todd. Cast: Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson: Stephen Lang; Gen. Robert E. Lee: Robert Duvall; Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain: Jeff Daniels; Sgt. Thomas Chamberlain: C. Thomas Howell; Sgt. Buster Kilrain: Kevin Conway; Anna Jackson: Kali Rocha; Fanny Chamberlain: Mira Sorvino.
MPAA rating PG-13, running time 223 minutes.
Ten years ago filmmaker Ronald F. Maxwell and media mogul Ted Turner, along with an army of Civil War "re-enactors" and an excellent cast headed by Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee, presented a 255-minute adaptation of Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Killer Angels." "Gettysburg" was a magnificent if flawed epic about the decisive battle of the war that stayed faithful to the original and showed leaders on both sides, illuminating the causes of the conflict, military strategies and tactics, personalities and motivations of the combatants and the terrible cost in human lives.
In their new production "Gods and Generals" -- a prequel to "Gettysburg" and based on the 1996 book written by Shaara's son Jeff -- Maxwell and company have departed greatly from the material to place more emphasis on civilians and a mostly gushing portrait of the Confederacy's Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. But this hardly justifies a running time that's one minute longer than "Gone With the Wind." Shown with an intermission and for long stretches recalling the monumental movie epics of eras past, the surprisingly wide but needs-a-miracle-to-make-a-profit Warner Bros. release is now the initial installment chronologically of a Civil War trilogy that will be completed with the adaptation of Jeff Shaara's "The Last Full Measure."
In broad strokes, the story follows Jackson (Stephen Lang), Lee (Robert Duvall) and Union Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels) as they join the war in 1861, and continues to the months before Gettysburg in early July 1863. "Gods" gives the re-enactors lots of screen time, showing highlights of the battles of Manassas (Bull Run), Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Along with the terrific Daniels (without the distractingly bad mustache this time), C. Thomas Howell as Chamberlain's brother and Kevin Conway as Sgt. Buster Kilrain, Lang is a "Gettysburg" veteran, having played the rebel commander George E. Pickett (only a bit player in this movie).
When the film is in combat mode it retains the sense of authenticity that made the first worth sitting through, but from the start "Gods" has a mighty wind of nostalgia and outright historical mythicizing that doesn't go down easily. Innocent perhaps, but self-indulgence is the only reason to include Sen. Phil Gramm in muttonchops as a member of the Richmond House of Delegates in a schoolbook-simple scene where Virginia secedes from the Union, as well as other showy group sequences that include Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Turner (reprising his cameo role from "Gettysburg," Confederate Col. Waller Tazewell Patton).
Even worse are the occasional long speeches that come from nowhere. As Federal troops cross the Rappahannock River and prepare to fight Lee at Fredericksburg, Chamberlain (a college professor from Maine) recalls Julius Caesar crossing the river into Rome centuries earlier. Jackson prays to God Almighty a lot. And looking at the stars at night does have a payoff when the aurora borealis appears like an omen (or sign of God's approval to some) over the battle-weary armies the night after the horrific slaughter on Marye's Heights. "Gods" also awkwardly, with limited success, includes women, children, slaves and non-officers, all mostly Southern.
Kali Rocha, as Jackson's wife Anna, makes a bigger impression than Mira Sorvino as Fanny Chamberlain, who predicts her husband will survive the war (see "Gettysburg" to know why it's such a good thing he lived till that battle). Rocha pours on the charm and gives Stonewall's prodigious beard loving squeezes. Lydia Jordan is a bundle of cuteness as Jane Corbin, a young girl Jackson shows his gentle, fatherly side to and whose death leads to the religiously inspired solder's one unstoppable display of grief. Donzaleigh Abernathy, as a slave for a Fredericksburg family, and Frankie Faison, as Jackson's black cook and personal valet, are given moments to be strong and noble.
Alas, Jackson's own famous demise in a case of friendly fire near Chancellorsville is the climactic event of "Gods," but it's hard to work up much emotion for the ruthless general Lee relied upon above all others. Nearly missing from the movie at the expense of so much attention paid to Jackson is the Union's Gen. Hancock (Brian Mallon, reprising his role in the first film).
Other than a sequence showing Irish immigrants fighting each other at Fredericksburg, "Gods" never approaches the moving highlight of "Gettysburg," where Hancock's best friend and Confederate enemy Armistead (played so memorably by Richard Jordan in the first film) passionately evokes the tragedy of a nation torn asunder.
GODS AND GENERALS
Warner Bros. Pictures
Ted Turner Pictures presents an Antietam Filmworks production
Credits: Screenwriter-producer-director: Ronald F. Maxwell; Executive producers: Ted Turner, Robert Katz, Robert Rehme, Moctesuma Esparza, Mace Neufeld; Director of photography: Kees Von Oostrum; Production designer: Mchael Z. Hanan; Editor: Corky Ehlers; Music: John Frizzell, Randy Edelman; Casting: Joy Todd. Cast: Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson: Stephen Lang; Gen. Robert E. Lee: Robert Duvall; Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain: Jeff Daniels; Sgt. Thomas Chamberlain: C. Thomas Howell; Sgt. Buster Kilrain: Kevin Conway; Anna Jackson: Kali Rocha; Fanny Chamberlain: Mira Sorvino.
MPAA rating PG-13, running time 223 minutes.
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