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I went into this with high hopes. As a member of the first generation to have Spielberg inflicted upon him, I know that his problem is not a lack of skill. It's a certain cowardice. Spielberg is unable to truly explore ambiguity or anything harsh-even when made necessary by his plots. At the last second, you know he's going to worry that one grandma in the audience might be troubled and pulls back.

This was one of those cases, unfortunately. I keep wanting Spielberg to make a movie the equal of his undisputedly amazing technical powers in content. I won't go into how much I wanted him to choke on his camera at the end of AI-that's another review for another day. But this film made me, well, sort of annoyed. The first 24 minutes are gold, or at least are the first time through.

First, the look-all color drained out of everything. The world, even the ground itself, looks wet and overcast. Very cold, almost Kubricky, not at all the visually juicy sort of photography we associate with Spielberg. So far, so good. We then see the US troops approaching the beach of Normandy, hunkered down in their transport too low for they or us to see what awaits them. They land, and almost everyone you just saw in close-up(mostly vomiting-not Tom Hanks, though, of course; we'll come back to that) is cut down by withering Nazi fire; indeed, watching the severity of the counterattack it's a wonder any of them make it even to shore. Most drown before their wounds can kill them. And don't stand next to Tom Hanks; you'll have to die before his eyes so he can be sad about it. That's so you don't notice Hanks never gets hit, for no plausible reason, given that he's mostly standing still at the start in the water, a very easy target watching everything happening.

Then we start to see the Spielbergisms. His attempt, it seems, at black comedy with one soldier picking up his arm and rushing away with it suddenly takes what is a horrifying scene into Yellowbeard. The second time seeing this beginning, by the way, the magic goes. Despite the "shake & sprinkle" handheld-looking camera work(made a cliche since by Ridley Scott in HANNIBAL and GLADIATOR), it's easy to see its orchestration and artifice. But the first time through, despite its flaws, works.

Then the golden lights and John Williams music starts to make your teeth ache. And we meet Gen. George Marshall reading us a famous letter from Lincoln, followed by a sequence at the farm of the mother of five sons, four now dead, in the Midwest,

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