The Alamo (DVD)

Like most people, when I go to the movie theater for a movie I go to be entertained and I don't expect a boring history lesson, and if I am going to get one there had better be some action to go along with it. When I went to see The Alamo I was excited by the trailers and ready for an action filled movie, unfortunately I ended up with a historical telling of what went on in Texas back in the early 1800s, which is what The Alamo appears to be.

When filmmakers take on a historical story they have a decision to make on how much they are going to dramatize the actual story to up the entertainment value of their film and with The Alamo it seems that a lot of the entertaining additions went out the window in order to respect such an important story in American history.

"Remember the Alamo," is a saying that people have lodged in their brain, even if they don't know what it means, and to bring this story back to the big screen without paying particular attention to detail would probably be taken as blasphemous by the entire state of Texas and true historians at the same time. So, with The Alamo what you end up with is an excellent example of awesome character development in the midst of one hell of a boring story.

Obviously I have no way of telling just how boring the actual story of the Alamo really is, I can tell you that this movie is boring. At about 2 hours and 17 minutes it feels as if it is a 3 hour movie with so many slow spots dedicated to character development that once you get to the awesome battle scenes you just don't care.

As far as this DVD edition goes they dedicate a lot of time to proving just how historically accurate the film is as it goes through an in-depth making-of feature showing you that even the extras took names of actual people that died at the Alamo. Then there is the audio commentary by a couple of historians that give you a play-by-play account of just how accurate each portion of the movie actually is, and seeing how they helped with the production they have a lot to say and point out. One of the best observations they had to offer was the quote, "You wanna try and avoid cannon balls when you can." Quite profound I would say.

Overall I see The Alamo as being a useful tool in high school history classes but as far as being a worthy addition to your DVD collection I suggest you pass as repeated viewings are highly unlikely.