Apocalypse Now Redux Review: A great film, made greater

Even greater in an entirely new version.

Francis Ford Coppola started work on Apocalypse Now in 1975, soon after he completed the Oscar-winning Godfather Part II; four years, and $32 million later, he screened it as a work in progress at Cannes (winning the Palme d'Or) and I first saw it three months later at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood in a 147min version which had no credits at all.

Inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the film is an indictment of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, the story of Captain Willard's mission to travel upriver into Cambodia to terminate with extreme prejudice the renegade American officer Colonel Kurtz.

With its innovative sound, extraordinary camerawork by Vittorio Storaro, and its angry vision of an ugly war on the ground, the film became an instant classic. Now, 22 years later, Coppola has finally produced what we assume is his director's cut - 53 minutes of additional footage which contains some extraordinary revelations - the aftermath of the Playboy Bunny concert, the theft of Lt. Col. Kilgore's surfboard, life in a French plantation where the original colonists of Indo China cling to precarious power. Add to these new scenes a revealing additional sequence depicting Marlon Brando's shadowy Kurtz in broad daylight.

Redux is like seeing a new film; if you love the old Apocalypse Now, you should be even more thrilled with this more detailed, more revealing new version. The extra scenes have been seamlessly edited into the film; the soundtrack is as breathtaking as ever, and the performances are still remarkable - Brando's tormented Kurtz, Martin Sheen's appalled Willard, Robert Duvall's manic Kilgore are outstanding. This is a great film, even greater in an entirely new version - and it's appearance now, when American forces are again at war in Asia, couldn't be more timely.