England in June 1944. Unseasonal storms. Allied troops are massed ready for the invasion of France, some already on the boats. The Normandy beaches will be their destination while paratroopers are dropped inland to take key towns and bridges. On the other side of the Channel the Germans still expect the invasion at Calais, and anyway the weather makes them think nothing is likely to be imminent. Eisenhower decides to go. Hitler sleeps on.
Like A BRIDGE TOO FAR, I enjoyed the Nazi's speaking in their native German. However, I also thought this film made the same mistake BRIDGE made, which was trying to cram too much into the film. New characters were constantly introduced throughout the film, regardless of how far into the picture we were and how little camera time they received. After watching these movies, I just appreciate SAVING PRIVATE RYAN even more because Spielberg decided to not jump into this pitfall some have, but rather focused on a select group of soldiers during this battle and made a movie about it. Finally, the battle scenes on the beach were what I was afraid was going to happen while watching these classic war films, glamorized. I know I shouldn't compare the two because RYAN was made 36 years later, but during RYAN, I felt (for however brief a time) how difficult and costly capturing that beach was. While watching THE LONGEST DAY, I didn't get a sense of that at all. All of the characters kept saying there were heavy casualties but very little of that was shown on screen. From the film, it seemed the soldiers captured the beach with minimal effort and there were hardly any Nazi's to fend off.
