Slaughterhouse Five

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Dave S Oct 28 Rich in complex themes and unusual structure, it’s understandable why filmmakers shy away from adapting the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, so give credit to George Roy Hill for at least taking a shot at one of Vonnegut’s most beloved works, Slaughterhouse Five. Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) spends his days pondering the meaning of his existence, travelling back in time to his experiences as a WW2 prisoner of war in Dresden at the time of the fire bombings and forward in time to his life on Tralfalmadore, where he is held captive and observed by the unseen natives, who live in a fourth dimension. Despite falling short of the brilliance of the novel, it manages, against all odds, to stay faithful to the source material with both the story and the themes remaining intact. While it’s not without its flaws, it is a surprisingly decent adaptation of the seemingly unadaptable. See more Jonathon J Jun 29 Apparently Vonnegut loved it, so that skews me a bit in its favor. Also in its favor: seeing Dresden was more effective than reading about it, and showed well the horrors of the aftermath. And Valencia's car crash scene was much more entertaining than in the book, where it was more straightforwardly tragic. The lead actor did a good job playing hapless, wandering Billy, although I found him much more unlikable than in the book. For me, it suffers from its 70s style, but most of all it does much less with the pointlessness of war. We never hear the catchphrase "so it goes" which shifts the tone away from the melancholic book. Overall, it's an interesting translation. See more Mark R Jun 19 There have been a few attempts to adapt Vonnegut but only George Roy Hill truly succeeded with Slaughterhouse Five. See more Daniel C. M 01/20/2025 A deep, misanthropic satire filled with dark and dry humor over it's sheer misery. The plot is very convoluted and has a pretty bad and confusing start. Nevertheless, it's positives outweight the negative, and this is definetely a movie you must see in your lifetime. See more Titus C 06/23/2024 It helps if you read the masterpiece. I applaud the film makers for taking the dare to make a movie that is so layered and the actors deliver. Open your mind. Let it in. Its a work of genius for 1972. See more Kyle C @kylekc 03/21/2023 This movie is okay but nowhere near as good as the book. And as usual, it doesn't really make a lot of sense if you haven't read the book, so it's not really worth watching at all. It loses most of the irreverent humor from the book, coming off as more dark and serious than it has any right to. That being said, the directing and editing save it from being a total wash by giving us some unique representations of the weirder concepts at play here. See more Read all reviews

Slaughterhouse Five

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