God, I hated Thin Red Line too.
And what annoys me about TRL is when you criticize it (as I've done on generic "movie" groups) you get trashed for being some sort of uncultured moron who only likes John Wayne movies and unthinking shoot-em-ups.
It tried to be a deep, serious, complex movie with a message (which I LIKE) and failed miserably. Saving Private Ryan was a far superior movie, in terms not just of being a "movie" but as a work of moviemaking art.
Part of the strange TRL worship always involves trashing of SPR, which is largely due to blind hatred of Spielberg and/or commercial success. Also the fact that Malick was seen as this legendary figure coming in from the cold...people didn't want to believe he could make something that sucked.
I too was laughing at the 765th slow, lingering shot of a parrot in a tree. It was HITTING YOU OVER THE HEAD with its "messages" (man and nature, etc.)
And the incessant voiceovers were filled with every mind-numbing, navel-examing cliche in the book. I was desperately praying for Witt to get his head blown off ASAP so we'd be spared his pointless voiceovers. Or attacked by a flock of vicious colorful parrots.
It's bad moviemaking to have to have so much of the point made by the "inner thoughts" of the protagonists rather than the dialogue. And from the WWII generation people I've met, that inner dialogue was more along the lines of "Shit, hope I don't get blown away today. Where's the booze? Malaria stinks. I want to kill some Japs" then the sort of esoteric philosophical ramblings the characters in this movie had.
The soldiers were pretty unbelievable as soldiers.
The combat scenes on the high kunai grass ridges were quite nice (and unique). That's about all I liked.
