Release Date: April 9, 2004
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sustained intense battle sequences
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, Patrick Wilson, Emilio Echevarria, Marc Blucas, W. Earl Brown, Stephen Bruton, Rutherford Cravens, Blue Deckert, Nick Kokich, Jordi Molla, Matt O'Leary, Wes Studi

Plot:
The roads cross at San Antonio de Bexar at a small, ruined mission called The Alamo--a place where myth meets history and legend meets reality. In the spring of 1836 nearly 200 Texans--men of all races who believed in the future of Texas--held the fort for thirteen days under siege by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, ruler of Mexico and commander of its forces. Led by three men--the young, brash Colonel William Travis; the violent, passionate James Bowie; and the larger-than-life living legend Davy Crockett--the Texans and their deeds at the Alamo would pass into history as General Sam Houston's rallying cry for Texas independence. As well, their actions would become legend for their symbolic significance.

Review:
There is a great amount of history in the epic that is known as The Alamo. A battle greatly appreciated and somewhat well known throughout the United States and the world for that matter. War films are great and completely memorable when they are done with great touches and strong directions. Of course, there are the times when these type of films take risks and they can be impressive or a complete failure.

Big budget war films take a lot of risks and at times it can succeed tremendously and be one of the best films to come in a long while. However, that greatness is not going to be nailed each time and it can sometime end up on the other side. Unfortunately The Alamo falls into the trap of a lackluster drama war motion picture. It clearly had its potential to become at least acceptable, but its clear the problems it faced and it did not overcome them.

This film follows the character Davy Crockett most of its running time. Crockett is played by actor Billy Bob Thornton and he plays his character rather well. While his character is not entirely serious and has humor every now and then, it is one of the interesting things this film has. Thornton gives a strong performance and its nice to see him make something entirely different from what he usually does.

Davy Crockett is a well known character for his accomplishments and risks he took in the war for the better in the United States. And For those who have done their history know that The Alamo was a battle for the right of the lower half of Texas. The Mexicans wanted that territory, but Americans know that it belongs to the United States and therefore a battle commences.

The battle doesn't commence immediately in the film and while that can be a good thing for the story's sake it wasn't in this film. The Alamo has the same problems that Master and Commander faced last year. Both of the films paces were quite slow and they each entered their delivering stages in the film extremely late. While Master and Commander succeeded because of its beautiful direction by Peter Weir, its not the same with this film.

The film is directed by John Lee Hancock and his sense of visuals can be appreciated because it is somewhat appealing in the film. While Hancock has no where near greatness as for directing The Alamo, its a passable direction, but nothing worth praising about. Perhaps the budget was used for some other aspects because with a high budget, this film doesn't clearly waste it for the better.

The Alamo has a ninety five million dollar budget which is rather a fair one for a war film. Besides the main battle towards the end of the film, the sets and costumes, it clearly isn't shown where all the money went. Some can say that it isn't a problem, but it in fact is because there could have been mind blowing sequences and impressive originality, but there wasn't that much at all.

A completely visible flaw in this film is the fact that Mexican Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana is shown in the film almost like an evil villain. The film places him as the evil and not as an equal and more of a human character just like the United States leaders. However, I completely enjoyed how both sides of the war are shown and that is congratulated by myself.

With the many problems this film had it is clear that it has its moments where one can say that it was impressive. Some of The Alamo’s shining moments comes from nice camera shots while cannon balls are being fired and also smooth shots when Thornton's character Davy Crockett is speaking to the men. Along with that while the battles in The Alamo are not impressive they were well choreographed and shot and in the end it comes out to be a positive concept if the film.

This film can be considered a what could have been type of film. One can clearly see what it wanted to list, but didn't impact the audience. If to not sound entirely out of context, Dennis Quaid had a great part in this film, but he didn't have enough screentime. He played Sam Houston and if there was more screentime with his character the film could have perhaps been somewhat entertaining. I doubt it would have made that much of a dramatic difference, but the fact comes down that the history of The Alamo cannot be dissected with Hancock's version.

The ending to The Alamo was a rather odd one and unnecessary because it didn't stick to the books. Instead the Director decided to end it hitting the audience with a large impact and instead its a lame ending. It has meaning nonetheless, but it is unrealistic to what the films portrayal was entirely about and going a different path than what it should be ordered to do was not for the better.

The Alamo is a disappointment of a film for the fact that it relied too much time on developing and not enough delivering. For most audiences, by the time the history is being shown in the film it is too late and can become careless to some. For the amount of flaws and average entertainment values that The Alamo has, I don't completely understand why they held the film back from last year because the wait didn't make much of a difference.