Very very good movie. i love it. it made me cry.

Ponderous (where's the battle?), navel gazing (not naval, unfortunately), sentimental, cliched, misses the big picture. Anything else? Actually, the battle scenes are quite impressive, even though the movie attempts to remove it from the screen altogether. The iconic photograph of the raising of the Stars and Stripes was somewhat inaccurate and was used as a part of US war propaganda? Got that? No? Then watch a movie that is two and a quarter hours long that bleats on about it. Alternatively.... look at the far superior Letters From Iwo Jima instead!… Expand

I think Clint Eastwood is on target with the scenes in this conflict. There is only so much you can do in two hours with a battle, which endured every day for over one month. The treatment of an American Indian fighting for his country lends to the same discrimination afforded to black americans during World War 2. A movie I will watch again for sure.

A great film that highlighted the brutality of war and the mechanisms used to manipulate the national conscious for whatever purpose. Full credit to Eastwood for creating the movie with enough sensitivity to respect those who fought, yet not resorting to clumsy attacks on the governments of the time. Adam Beach was incredible, although general character development was lacking, probably sacrificed in favour of pursuing the issue rather than the stories of the men themselves.… Expand

Although not especially entertaining, this movie is something that doesn't hit you often- haunting. I walked out from the sprawling experience a little dazed, perhaps, not especially satsified as far as entertainment goes. But it's better than entertainment; it really upended my perception of America and the way in which we treat our heroes. This is what movies were made for.

Ambitious in scope and effective in impact. Again, Clint Eastwood got solid acting performances out of the ensemble. Standouts were Adam Beach and Ryan Philippe. The battle scenes conveyed the chaos and brutality of war with a visual style that has nothing to envy from Saving Private Ryan. It's an amazingly complex study of characters, heroism and the politics of war. It's a movie that needs to be seen.… Expand

Brilliant.

I agree almost entirely with Entertainment Weekly's commentary. The film is technically fine with a story that should be enthralling, yet somehow the movie is less than the sum of its parts. The soldier's stories in particular are very thin. The action is fairly well done, but due to Eastwood's stylistic choice to use desaturated, and the nature of the uniforms, it's rather difficult to tell who's who. I left without any specific criticisms, but feeling that there really wasn't enough there.… Expand

What could have been a great movie becomes mediocre thanks to a disjointed narrative and lack of real connection to the characters--this movie feels like it is twice as long as its 2:12 running time would suggest.

Entertaining movie, worth the $10 to see a well told story of one of the epic battles of WWII. Not the best of Eastwoods movies but certainly better than a few other movies out there ( are you listening "The Departed?"). A somewhat disjointed plot, considering the flashbacks and forwards, but otherwise well-told, with realistic portrayal of battle scenes.

A good movie, The characters lack depth at the beginning of the film, but they begin to take shape as the movie moves on. This Movie is NOT Saving Privat Ryan. If you are looking for no stop action this movie does not have that as it tells the story of the men who raised the second flag at Iwo Jima and their personal stories. The movie is mostly HIstorically accurate and tries to present the events as they happened. A great piece of American history is put forth in this film.… Expand

Classic Hollywood propaganda. Lacked momentum and character development. Doesnt hold a candle to Band of Brothers or SPRyan. Im glad Eastwood wasnt directing in 1944-we would have lost the War. To presume that there were no heroes just guys not trying to get shot is an affront to those who were heroes in WWII. Dont see this trash.

A very well constructed WWII epic, based completely around the events of Iwo Jima and its subsequent effects on those soldiers involved in the fighting. Think of it as having the opposite moral of Saving Private Ryan, the heroism is shown as simply a means to an end rather than being wholly glorified. Interesting point of view, and very historically accurate work by Eastwood.

Overrated. A film drained of light, life and energy. The battle sequences especially disappoint and the cutting back and forth in time is really a problem and removes momentum. The film critic community appreciated its anti-heroic stance with an overlying stench of corruption; but the audiences will not.

The movie was slow--and not enough character development. It took a while to figure out who was who--you'd think with all this time, it would be established earlier on. Ok, war is hell, and it's a business--but the movie kept making the point over and over again and neglected other aspects. I don't think there was enough material for a story hear. It was beautifully shot, though.

It may be a little disappointing, the war part is quite scarce and quick, and the political/social impact part is too long.

inferior.

The direction, acting and painfully boring political spectrum involving the war leads to a war movie that has each character mearly one politicians handshake away from becoming a cliched and forgettable film experience. There is absolutely no connection between the characters and with such long pauses between past, present, future and politics you almost forget that Eastwood set out to do a film about war. This movie is definietly not worth the time and suggest seeing Letters from Iwo Jima where Eastwood gets it right… Expand

The realism in this film was breathtaking.

Long, boring, poorly acted. the war scenes were pretty but incredibly fake looking.

I think that the japanese version is better. The movie stays a little boring in certain parts. Watching the movie I 've realized that the americans weren' t so brave and honorable like the japaneses. I thought that the track deserved an Academy Award.

Very fun awesome movie, best of the year!

A little obtuse in some of the domestic scenes, and the splicing of time-era scenes borders on the sloppy, but otherwise this project always has its heart in the right place. An unflinching bluff-call of the way our media abuses the word "hero". Also a welcome if slightly overstated reminder of why we refer to the people of that time as our greatest generation - our parents who in their millions quietly accepted a duty to country and, despite the distraction of shameless and irrepressible opportunists, lifted our country to the top of the geopolitical food chain. It's the obscure folk who live and die by the rules and play on the beach if given the chance, not the dominators and celebrities and mobsters, who advance civilization.… Expand

A beautiful look at a war's effects on and off the battlefield.

This is a masterpiece. A richly textured, complex film whose power may not be fully comprehended on the first viewing. But that's the mark of greatness, in my book, a sign of a depth too little seen on screens today.

The battle sequences are fantastic, and the film's message is important. A very good film.

As a few others have said, this is a good movie, not a great movie. The movie does not praise war nor does vilify it. The 3 main characters did there job and did not seek the praise they received. Even though these men could have walked away from the adulation, Eastwood's film lets you understand why they stayed. I had trouble keeping characters straight but in the end, it didn't matter who raised the flag, they were all heroes.… Expand

Superficial, characters we never get to know, leaving viewers with an empty feeling.

Don't get me wrong, Flags of Our Fathers is a good movie. It lacks the visual poetry of The Thin Red Line, it does not have the stark realism of Full Metal Jacket or Saving Private Ryan, nor does it have the emotional punch of returning war vets like Coming Home, but it tries for all three and at times, comes close. Like I said, it's a good war movie. But, because it's a Clint Eastwood film, it will surely be lauded as one of the great war movies of all time and will be the one nominated for a zillion Oscars that every one will say is so deserving but will be thinking at the same time "Not Again!" So come on everybody, jump on the Eastwood bandwagon. The legend has made another "Good" movie.… Expand

A great film, but not much plot to deal with. Great battle scences, ones I will remember.

If the filmmaker's intent is to honor our dead, there probably shouldn't be scenes that would emit ooohs and aaahs from the Fangoria jetset. Like Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", the level of gore is once again, envelope-pushing; and it's my assertion that nobody needs to see the human flesh mangled in such horrifying detail. Watching the combat scenes in "Flags of our Fathers" is a lot like the truth about auto racing; some spectators are waiting for the carnage. Blood and guts aren't going to upstage Tom Hanks, but it does give a slightly lesser actor like Jesse Bradford (actually, he's pretty good here) a run for his money. But what the decapitated head and movable stomach doesn't upstage in this otherwise noble film is the highlighting of a less-enlightened and hopefully bygone era, in which minorities gave up their lives for a country that championed their institutionalized subjugation. Adam Beach, as the Indian stooge, is the heart and soul of this not wholly organized movie.… Expand

The movie makes a unique point about heroism and has realistic war scenes. But, the movie looses its way in the middle with too many flashbacks. Better editing would have made a more concise and moving story.

Excellent....very powerful and true to the book.

Director and American icon Clint Eastwood follows up Million Dollar Baby, which was controversial but shouldn't have been, with a surprisingly subversive critique of America's participation in the Last Good War that even managed to hoodwink ultrapatriotic right-wing movie reviewer Michael Medved (Baby's prime and most notorious detractor) into uncritically awarding it three and a half stars. (Maybe it's the title.) While Eastwood and writers Paul Haggis and William Broyles Jr. never mention Iraq, the parallels are certainly there for all to see: their movie's vision of World War II is one where funding and public support are controlled and manipulated by (largely fraudulent) PR gimmicks, and both Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman are shown to have historical predecessors. Ultimately, this is all a lot more interesting to discuss than to actually watch: Eastwood's storytelling approach derails itself with a tortuous, serpentine flashback-within-flashback structure of the kind that occasionally works in romantic dramas and spy thrillers but virtually NEVER in war movies, as the poor reception given to the similarly-structured 1944 Humphrey Bogart French Resistance drama Passage to Marseille (made by the people behind Casablanca) will bear out. (Saving Private Ryan wisely limited itself to making the entire movie a simple journey through only one character's past; perhaps Steven Spielberg, doing co-producer duty here, was trying to top himself. If so, quit while you're ahead!) Eastwood's use of decolorized cinematography in his depiction of the struggle for Iwo Jima is visually effective but nowhere near as gripping or as frightening as Ryan's opening battle sequence, and the use of highly unconvincing special effects and props to depict battlefield gore doesn't work at all. Actors as frequently bland as Jesse Bradford, Ryan Phillippe and Paul Walker, playing servicemen, do nothing to intensify our identification with them, and the only time Flags of Our Fathers really hits the mark is in its fascinating portrayal of Pima Indian Ira Hayes (movingly played by Adam Beach) who generally accepted racist jokes about squaws and wigwams from his fellow Marines as good-natured male bonding but couldn't handle the official and unofficial racism of the folks back home, and because of that AND the knowledge that he was ordered to promulgate a fraud for the sake of building support for the war and selling war bonds, became one of World War II's most poignant psychological casualties. In the last couple of months, we moviegoers have been treated to two inspirational football dramas, two period pieces involving magicians, and THREE films in which a real-life character is so fascinating and beautifully played that he just dwarfs all the other stuff surrounding him. Put together a three-part movie consisting of just the George Reeves material from Hollywoodland, the Idi Amin footage in The Last King of Scotland and everything involving Hayes in this picture, and the resulting anthology would be a prime contender for one of the 10 best films of 2006!… Expand

I'm sorry, this film may pick up wonderously in the second half, but the opening 45 minutes was such a rehash of the all too familiar young men going into battle that I couldn't sit through any more....in other words, the setup was anything but.

Eastwood should stick to his tried & true formula of stories about flawed heroes. He's confused the viewer with a muddled picture of real, historic, heroes that suffered greatly subsequent to their sacrifice. In FOOF he presents a story, I believe, that criticizes & impugnes a generation that fought many economic, social and physical threats and looked to elevate men to hero status because it was a time when we needed heroes. Certainly the nature of heroism has always been a subject of art; Eastwood has not presented anything new in FOOF. The story was presented in a very confusing manner with flashback/forwards, characters in multiple manifestations, underveloped characters, voiceovers, etc. Characters were shown in heroic conditions yet their heroic credentials, as presented in the plot, seemed to be questioned?...because they were promoted by government handlers?...they were the "2nd flag" raisers? I don't believe in contemporary history of the time there was any widespread question of the 2nd flag raising being an act staged. It's only contempory culture that would acuse our military of staged photo opps as in Iraq. We've become a culture that to an extent elevates the "anti-hero" and shuns the adoration or even comtemplation for our present day military heroes who sacrifice all for us....how many contemporary celebrations of heroic stories from the war on terror are there on CNN or other art forms? Maybe one day we'll return to a time when we respect heroic action and, if by chance, we apply some amount of myth to their accomplishments, then they are nevertheless appreciated.… Expand

This Movie simply disppointed everyone I know who watched it. The Script maybe was good enough for 90 or maybe 100 Minutes. But they sadly decided to make a 130 Minute long sleeping pill out of it. Sad to waste so much potential in such a way. 4/10 from me.

I felt so bad for Ira Hayes. It is sad how people will use you and throw you away once you have served their purpose. Too bad this moive hasn't caught on with the viewing public. I think it is a must see. It has a lot of relevance to current events.

Not a great film. It suffers from "Eastwood-ism", it meanders and doesn't know where to end. Solid perfromances, a decent script, but nothing new or earth-shattering. And, uncomfortably, not as strong an anti-war message as it should have been. I felt Clint was silently cheering as the Japanese were obliterated. And the nuclear family cheerleading is getting a bit tiresome... no wonder: Spielberg was a producer.… Expand

I'm excited, just coming from a screening of Clint's masterpiece. It was amazing! Best film so far....! By far!

Simply an amazing story.

Outstanding.

Though slow at times, Flags of Our Fathers is a fine film that was obviously made with care. Eastwood has had a great run for the past few years and this movie only continues his legacy. Although the war sequences are film beautifully, what makes this film unlike its predecessors is the amazing degree of precision shown in the lives of soldiers post bellum.

What impressed me most was that the political and social problems during WWII were seemingly the same as today. While we may be trying to treat minorities better (unless you look like an Arab), the political world seems about the same. Vets today are still fighting for fair treatment after having given their all in combat.

I was most impressed by the emotion and presentation of the story. Having read the book, the switching in time and place were not confusing to me. Great movie!

Outstanding and powerful. Faithful to the book. The battlefield scenes are harrowing (I can only imagine what the companion film will look like) and the acting is superb. My only criticism is I thought the ending was a bit weak and flat. Otherwise, an A+ film.

Good, but not great. Although since it's Clint Eastwood, so many critics are going crazy over this one, like they did "Million Dollar Baby." The cinematography is fantastic, and while others won't say it's like "Saving Private Ryan," I certainly thought they were similar. But what bothered me about this movie is it danced on the edge of being anti-American with some of the scenes and dialogue. What these men did for our country was the ultimate sacrifice...they may not have perceived themselves as "great men," but I certainly do.… Expand

This is the first time I've ever given a movie a ten on MetaCritic. This is definitely one of the best, if not the absolute best, WW2 films ever created. It pays its respects to the soldiers who fought in WW2, but at the same time it shows the other side of the story. Similar to the fictional Catch 22, it depicts the ugly side of America and her military during a time of war. If you are into World War 2 video games, books, movies, you MUST see this movie! The realism and authenticity of the battle scenes are worth it by itself, and the political and philosophical themes will get you thinking, long after you've seen the movie.… Expand

This is a great Movie that could have been. The editing was so bad that at one point I thought the projectionest had skipped a reel. What a shame. I wish it could be recut to better tell the story and get us involved with the characters before the die off.

An unusual war film that seems far more congruent with reality than any of the other WWII flicks of recent years. Despite not much time spent on the characters, smart viewers will still find time to empathize with them as they're thrown about in a story of unusual structure and scope. For the most part this works. Despite minor narrative flaws, this is for me the most real, affecting and smartest WWII film in modern times. Strangely, it goes against all of the worn out and overbearing themes of the far better received "Letters from Iwo Jima" (an obvious Paul Haggis script where "Crash" meets "Saving Private Ryan" with Japanese actors). This is the better film.… Expand

A cynical and uncomfortable film, the likes of which we seldom get a chance to see, "Flags of our Fathers" is quite a piece of work and succeeds on all levels.

This movie is not nearly as good as the ratings would suggest. The budget, the genera, R-rating, and director grant it several additional undeserved rating points before it was ever even viewed by most reviewers. We expect to see a mindless comedy, romance, or kiddie movie at the bottom of the scale, but nobody dares to put a "serious" movie there. This movie was simply not entertaining and therefore not that thought provoking either. When rated accurately against its peers, this movie deserves to be rated down with the likes of "Who's Your Caddy?", "Giggli" and "See Spot Run", even if it is a far superior film-making effort.… Expand

Overall, i thought this movie was pretty good, had good action scenes, great effects, the story could of been better but the message was good.

This is a decent war movie struggling to become a morality tale. However, the sole premise of the morality tale is that of the relatively minor consideration that WW2 was oversimplified, commercialised and somewhat romanticised for US civilians. How is this news? Who cares if two flags were put up instead of one? The whole point of symbolism is that it cuts away the extraneous. Flags of Our Fathers wallows in the extraneous (which it itself attempts to symbolise). Moreover, by this bizarre focus on the flag hoisting the movie degrades the actual battle for Iwo Jima, relegating it secondary to this non-event. Look at Letters From Iwo Jima instead. Oh - and if I hear one more 'hero' ranting because he can't stand all the praise he receives then I might just shoot him to relieve his agony.… Expand

Why are so many people relating this only to *Saving PR* ? Because Reviewers are very unimaginative and forgot all other "serious" war films. That, and the monochromatic battle scenes, and the old- vetaran-remember's flashback gimmick. For these few points of similarity, to Speilberg's shallow, generic film, I don't blame Spielberg, I blame Haggis and Eastwood. They should have spent a little more time coming up with something more original. A very good job, not as good as Eastwood's last two, and certainly not as good as his early-to-mid '90's work. Best film of the year so far.… Expand

The obvious benchmark in the genre is Saving Private Ryan and this movie fails in the most fundamental way in comparison. You do not care about the characters at all. I've never seen so much forced crying on screen. At the end of SPR, the characters were all developed so well that you cared about everyone... a great deal. Someone needs to make a good war epic about the war in the pacific. Pearl Harbor was bad. Thin Red Line was mediocre. It's an open canvas.… Expand