The energy and conviction of the action sequences don't quite compensate for Windtalkers' emotional cliches and historical heedlessness.
Comment
09/19/08
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Windtalkers (2002)
33
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:165
Fresh:54
Rotten:111
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: The action sequences are expertly staged. Windtalkers, however, sinks under too many clichés and only superficially touches upon the story of the code talkers.
Theatrical Release:Jun 14, 2002 Wide
Box Office: $40,531,308
Synopsis: WINDTALKERS begins quietly--with widescreen aerial shots of clouds that gradually clear to reveal the beautiful mesas of Monument Valley. A bus collects Navajo volunteers Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach)... [More]
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Christian Slater, Peter Stormare
Director: John Woo
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Reviews for Windtalkers
Top CriticA powerful premise turned into a stubbornly flat, derivative war movie.
09/19/08
Top CriticReplete with Cage's finest angsty acting and John Woo's requisite concerns of friendship and rivalry in the face of violence.
09/19/08
With Windtalkers, the glaring refutations of time, space and reality impress upon viewers the simple fact that Woo is at his best when he isn't attempting anything more significant than the most emptily satisfying explosion you're likely to enjoy - a scat
07/02/08
The screenwriters struggle to integrate the coded transmissions with the action, and the flamboyant set piece battles feel like so much empty rhetoric.
01/26/06
What we get is a surprisingly entertaining film, corny as it is at times, that could have suited John Wayne. [Published 5-13-02]
12/19/05
This is the kind of film where you think you can predict everything that’s going to happen upon the first shot and you spend the rest of the film praying that you’re wrong. But it’s fun getting there.
12/06/05
I didn't expect a comedy.
10/07/04
Too celebratory of Woo's good guy-versus-bad guy, buddy-buddy ethos of action movies to rise above the limitations of the genre, and too obsessed with its own seriousness to be a truly 'serious' film.
02/01/04
A vast repository of hoary, honour-code clichés.
10/19/03
You’d probably be better off reading Catch 22 – even if it is for the fifth time . . .
09/24/03
A premissa é interessante, mas o terceiro ato do filme, quando Cage e Beach se tornam indestrutíveis, estraga o filme.
07/25/03
It’s tough to get worked up after watching superior films like Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers.”
06/13/03
Sure, he directs the heck out of gun battles and hand-to-hand combat, paying loving attention to each grunt, spurt and grimace, but there is something unseemly about the agony of war serving as fodder for yet another of Woo's sensational spectacles.
05/20/03
While some may have used this fascinating subject matter to craft a serious drama with historical significance, Woo and his writers choose instead to stay with the high-octane action format.
02/08/03
What should be a moving story with spectacular battle scenes by one of the world's greatest action directors is a huge let-down.
02/02/03
Here, [Woo] has to deal with visual chaos. And he doesn't do a good job of it.
01/07/03
More than passable summer entertainment and I think if they were still making war westerns today, it would feel right at home.
12/08/02
...Windtalkers is one of the most exciting (not to mention violent) war movies to emerge in quite some time.
11/08/02
Inspired by true events, this war-is-hell action drama from John Woo is a failed epic that doesn't rise to meet the material that inspired it.
11/07/02
Latest News for Windtalkers
September 15, 2005:
Critical Consensus: Critics Thank "Heaven," But Don't Praise The "Lord"
This week at the movies brings us a supernatural romance ("Just Like Heaven"), a jaded arms dealer ("Lord of War") and two experiments in terror... More...
July 07, 2005:
Eastwood Drafts Three Soldiers for "Flag" Duty
Legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood ("The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Million Dollar Baby") has just started casting his next project, which is a WWII drama... More...
August 20, 2001:
Painstakingly choreographed battle scenes exposed actors and cameramen to as many as 280 bombs, and at least one close call. 
More...
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