The Alamo (2004)

Plot Outline: It's 1836 and with the advance of General Santa Anna's massive 2,000 strong Mexican army through Texas, a small group of 187 brave soldiers are ordered to make a stand at the Alamo in order to buy General Sam Houston time to organise his army.

The Review: Just like John Wayne's 1960 epic, this re-telling of the historical story of the Alamo simply doesn't cut it and actually makes Wayne's version slightly better in the process. At least they made massive epics regularly back in the day - nothing like that anymore. As with the earlier version, this suffers from the same problems, namely the padding out of the characters before and during the siege before the actual storming of the Alamo. For the first 77 minutes, very little worthwhile happens. We're introduced to the main characters in case you don't know who they are. Pointless character development is thrust into the headlights in an attempt to give us some meat to some of American history's most famous figures. Characters with shadowy pasts, inner conflicts and such like - nothing we haven't seen before and nothing you know is going to affect the outcome. It's not until Santa Anna's army shows up on the doorstep of the Alamo that the film starts to take shape. The actual assault on the Alamo is breathtaking in scale as in the original and there's plenty of cannon fire, bayonets and punch ups to try and repel the Mexicans. Much of this battle takes place at night and it's a credit to the cinematographer that everything is amazingly realistic. The darkness of the night is illuminated by the constant volley of gun fire and burning houses. If only the rest of the film showed this much energy throughout! As for the main cast, Billy Bob Thornton is great as Davy Crockett, the underrated Dennis Quaid adds a bit of meat to the underwritten role of General Houston and Jason Patric earns a steady pay cheque as knife-happy Jim Bowie. There's also an unnecessary 30 minutes after the Battle of the Alamo in which Dennis Quaid's Sam Houston rallies the rest of his army and proceeds to wipe out the camped Mexican army. This adds nothing to the story with the exception of more battle scenes and a bit of closure to the whole thing. I'd have rather it ended with Crockett's demise at the Alamo myself to give it a sombre tone. And let's face it, spoilers aren't much cop in a film where everyone knows what happens anyway.

Final Verdict: Sam Houston cries "remember the Alamo" in his final victory charge against the Mexicans. Based on the rest of the film, that's not very likely.

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