For the full extent of my high school years (1988-92), I was a cadet in the United States Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. My fellow cadets and I worshiped the Boot Camp half of this film. R. Lee Ermey was like a god to us, and we memorized all of his speeches. But because we were so obsessed with the Ermey character, we never seemed to watch the second half. We apparently bought into the myth that it sucked.

Looking back now on that Boot Camp half that looms so large in my memory, I find two truths at work: First, it's been parodied so many times since then, frequently by Ermey himself, that it's initially hard to take…

This film has always given me a deep sense of unease. This feeling particularly applies to the first part, which takes place at basic training. In fact, I feel that what the recruits are exposed to affect myself directly. The whole film deals with partial degradation of human dignity and the self, but the way Kubrick throws this in our faces already from the beginning grabs me every time.
The haircut-sequence is an important part of this. As before a surgical procedure, the skulls are prepared for the psychological interventions that will follow. Human hair, an important part of who you are, is left behind in a heap on the floor. By completely changing and standardizing appearance this helps alienating…

While it is admittedly true that the second portion of the film itself is not as strong as the initial half, Full Metal Jacket still favorably makes for a relatively solid war feature that realistically depicts the horrors of the Vietnam War quite well, and is one that is for sure efficiently directed by one of the most influential & greatest filmmakers ever, Stanley Kubrick.

With the first section of the film, Kubrick opts for a more unconventional approach that shows us a platoon of U.S. Marines going through essential boot camp training. This is where Full Metal Jacket shines the most as it prominently displays exceptional performances from just about everyone involved in this specific portion, especially R. Lee Ermey…

There are only a handful of truly iconic war films and this most definitely belongs among them. It does not merely depict elements of war in a realistic way, it also intelligently critiques and satirizes our species' instinctive tendencies to wage war and the inescapable need for a communal spirit while cyclically purveying an 'us vs them' mentality.

In the first part, perhaps most famous for the foul mouthed genius of Lee Ermy, Kubrick shows us how the cogs are created in the machine that was the Vietnam war. By dehumanizing new recruits, Kubrick shows us the strengths and weaknesses of our race. When pushed, we can achieve anything we want. When thrust together we take care of our own…

The first 45 minutes of this movie are in my opinion a masterpiece, the brutal showing of boot camp is horrifying, visceral, and degrading. Whether it’s realistic or embellished I can’t say, though I would assume probably pretty realistic based on the world at that time and the military in general. Visually this movie is definitely a top five war movie, there are some absolutely stunning scenes and the cinematography is breath taking at times. What sets this movie apart from the other two main Vietnam movies is the setting of a city and not having any of the war take place in the jungle, it gives the movie a very different feel, and visually it’s my favorite looking war…