I’m ambivalent about Apocalypse Now Redux. The highly praised Vietnam War drama is relived with a mixed bag of emotions. Conflating 53 minutes of footage into the original 1979 version adds somewhat to the film’s hefty substratum, but not a lot.

 There is a lengthy, arduous plod (for the audience and presumably the actors and crew) towards the film’s climax. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is on a journey with a group of soldiers down a Vietnamese river, the portal to his mission to eliminate with extreme prejudice the insane Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who has instigated a cult at the mouth of the river. Kurtz needs to be cut-off as his story is only bad publicity for America, yet he is a decorated Colonel.

 It makes a strong statement against American involvement in Vietnam, the release coincides with today’s political climate considering the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and subsequent invasion of Iraq, which was a controversial move bringing up this film’s themes of anti-Americanism in relation to the country’s interventionalism.

 Having trod patiently through seemingly insignificant and pointless scenes, which reiterate the basic idea, we come to the highlight of the film, the finale. Brando and Sheen’s confrontation, with great support from Dennis Hopper as a photo journalist, underline the main power punch Apocalypse Now, redux or not, has to offer.

 It may be considered pretentious, but to this reviewer Willard’s journey into the underbelly of the heart of darkness and his subsequent confrontation with insanity itself (i.e. Kurtz) is potent. Even if you disagree with the maxim that Brando, impressive and foreboding as Kurtz, espouses towards the end - we must make friends of horror and moral terror – it has been a disturbing sojourn into the dehumanisation and humiliation that war orchestrates. This is not a great redux, but it is handsomely mounted, striking to behold, and pulls a power punch. The beginning – particularly the battle scene with Robert Duvall’s pivotal performance – and the end, are magnificent; the plodding middle doesn’t add overly to the original.