Good Morning Vietnam Special Edition
Filed Under: Film, Reviews | Article Tags : DVD review
By: The Dweeb
January 2006
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Gooooooooood Morning Vietnam! Almost everyone knows this signature line from the movie of the same name. A film that changed Robin Williams career, as this is now one of his signature roles. Long after MASH went off the air (Yes I know it was set in Korea), Barry Levinson dared to make a comedy film about Viet Nam while the nation was still licking its wounds. The studios were worried it would be controversial, and as usual, they were wrong. With the right people, it became a hit, and a classic. Now Disney has decided to release a new version onto DVD along with his other signature drama role “Dead Poets Society“.
Most of you know the story, quite simple really. Armed Forces Radio Saigon brings in hotshot DJ Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams) to spice things up a bit for the American Forces. Little do the top brass know what a rebel he is and chaos ensues, playing rock n roll, starting bar fights and taking over English classes. He becomes a hit and in the process becomes out of control as his superiors try to reign him in. The radio stations only job is to make it seem like everything is fine in Viet Nam, all the while the country is slowly turning into chaos, and Adrian gets caught up in the middle of it. Levinson makes effective use of some of the cheerful music as irony in many of the music montages. During the song “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong, stuff is blowing up, people are getting killed, riots, it makes for quite a striking contrast.
Robin Williams really was a great choice to play the maverick Airman from Crete (where women all look like Zorba). His frenetic, hyper, super energized style of humor makes for some great moments. Especially all of his on air tirades, which were completely ad libbed on the fly the by the way. “Goooooooood morning Vietnam! It’s 0600 hours. What does the “O” stand for? O my God, it’s early!” I’ve seen this film many times, and it cracks me up every time.
Another notable note about this movie is the soundtrack. What the heck did I just type? Ah you know what I mean. The music is almost exclusively all classic rock n roll from the sixties, and this is probably one of the best movie soundtracks ever. Good Morning Vietnam’s sound had a huge impact and revitalized some careers of these artists as this came back into the forefront of the publics mind. Heck, even I went and bought it and I was in junior high at the time.
This DVD is a reissue, there was one released in 1998 but it was just a barebones edition. I think the transfer is probably the same, they just added new extra materials. The picture is decent, although some grain is visible in certain parts. The sound is fairly decent as well, not a bad job transferring this to a Dolby Surround track. The extra material is also fairly decent, but unfortunately there is no sign of Robin Williams anywhere. At least we get to see all of his monologues uncut, some of that stuff is hilarious. They also catch up to the real Adrian Cronauer, and he makes a kind of man on the street type interview. I wish they could have gone more in depth with him, but the whole thing seemed strange in the first place. How about sitting down for the camera? There is also a lengthy documentary on the background of the film, which is really interesting to watch as well.
This is a nicely updated DVD from Disney. If you don’t have the film yet, this would be the one to buy.
Reviewer’s Opinion: BUY IT!!
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