Well, I'm no kind of film buff, so maybe that's why I'm not entirely sold on the idea of Kubrick as a great director. À propos, I haven't seen all his films, but of those that I have seen, Strangelove was fantastic, A Clockwork Orange was unpleasant but undeniably memorable (and also, I think, quite good, though I'm in no hurry to watch it again), but 2001 put me to sleep (though I admittedly didn't watch it - or, rather, attempt to watch it - in the most conducive of states) and I found The Shining, which I'd have expected to like, rather on the turgid side. In any case, the net result of all this is that I didn't go into Full Metal Jacket particularly expecting to be blown away, and in the event it did leave me fairly underwhelmed.
It's certainly very well made, and funny in places, but I didn't find much else to like about it. The first 'act', following the training of the recruits, is well-acted and interesting but doesn't seem to have any point (though its unsettling ending, in particular, would in a different film have lent itself to a fairly programmatic reading). And the second act, in Vietnam itself, is neat but also strikes me as pointless, right up to the anti-climactic ending (could it be that this is Kubrick's point? Maybe, but I kind of doubt it). I guess that I just don't respond to Kubrick's work - sometimes, I can admire it, but I'm not wired in a way to 'feel' it, and I don't watch films in a way which allows me to enjoy them unless I feel them. So that's that for Stanley Kubrick and I, at least for now.
