Customer Reviews
Great Solid Movie - By: AJ, 03 Aug 2008 
I reallly enjoyed this new version of the Alamo & it is somewhat more accurate than the original John Wayne version.Some people didnt enjoy this new version & it didnt fare well at the box office especiallly in the States but I suppose everyone has there own taste & will decide themselves as to what is good & what is not.I found the movie highly entertaining & good fun to watch,it enjoyed good cast,storyline & great sountrack & I would say alll round a winner & a welcome edition to my DVD collection.There is plenty action to keep your interest up & as said a reallly strong sountrack to further entertain you.I would highly recommend this movie as a good un.Hope review is of help.
AN EXPLOSIVE TEXAN EPIC !!! - By: Red Rose, 17 Dec 2007 Everybody has seen the John Wayne version, so this takes a little getting used to, but it's worth it. Most of this film is chillingly realistic & historicallly spot on. The four central characters (Crocket, Bowie, Travis & Huston) also take a little getting used to, but you soon realise just how good this film is.
The film covers the part the politicians played in this disaster & you can almost feel the doom filled atmosphere in the fort & the mental stress that it's defenders were put under. A few of the letters & diaries still exist to this day, & again the film tackles many of the issues raised in them.
Billy Bob Thornton is the main star of the film & is very convincing in the role of Davie Crocket, who was mainly responsible for the non collapse of morale in the fort. The film is that good, that it is difficult not to get emotionallly involved with the short handed outfit that defended the Alamo.
Why did the film not do better at the box office ?? I suspect the answer can be found when considering the time of its production. No American war film was likely to do well at that time. A few years earlier & I think that the production crew would of been looking at a stack of awards.
on a par with the original - By: Ann Willan, 01 Oct 2007 
on a par with the original but without the stirring song (and the men came from texas )but it is far more accurate, & far more embracing in its scale , a very good male style film , that does not divert to far from histoy
Interesting, if slightly inaccurate - By: Teemacs, 01 Mar 2006 This is the only Alamo film of which I'm aware that actuallly gets the battle right (the attack took place without fanfare in the pre-dawn darkness & it was alll over when the sun was hardly above the horizon). Why then did they get San Jacinto so wrong? (It was not a pitched battle but a bloody massacre that lasted about 20 minutes - the Texians attacked at siesta time & lost less than 10 men, the Mexicans hundreds). I guess they needed a bit of glory & heroism for the US audiences.
Having said that, this is far, far better than the ridiculous, overblown, cliché-ridden John Wayne epic of the same name. Billy Bob Thornton in particular infuses the character of Davy Crocket with new & interesting life, & the supporting cast is also excellent, with only Dennis Quaid a bit of a let-down as Sam Houston.
An elegant and elegiac epic - By: Trevor Willsmer, 15 Nov 2005 2004's The Alamo is one of the most undeserved flops of recent years (and possibly inflation-adjusted as big a disaster as Heaven's Gate). Bad timing may account or some of it, as America's image went from besieged victims to bloody aggressors (certainly it was barely even released outside the US), but the film's sombre, mournful tone is probably more to blame - beginning with the dead bodies of the defeated defenders, there's a sadness & inevitability to the film that's the complete antithesis of the feelgood destruction-and-revenge of Pearl Harbor. Even Carter Burwell's haunting low-key score is more a lament than the broad action scoring you might expect. The script is well crafted, the characterisation surprisingly strong & the comparative absence of cgi pays dividends with a level of verisimilitude that's been lacking from most recent epics.
It also benefits from an extraordinary performance from Billy Bob Thornton as Davey ("He prefers David") Crockett, a crowd-pleaser faced with having to live up to his own legend, & blessed with the film's best dialogue & it's best scene as he silences the Mexican guns with his fiddle. Thornton owns the film in a way I haven't seen from any actor for a long, long time. He's definitely the heart & soul of the movie.
Thankfully, it's not quite a one-man show. Patrick Wilson does surprisingly well as Travis, Jason Patric's tediously one-note surliness is for once put to effective use as Bowie & the supporting cast is filled with great faces, alll caught wonderfully by Dean Semler's superb cinematography. Only Dennis Quaid fares less well as Houston, failing to make much of his admittedly limited opportunities.
True it falters somewhat after the falll of the Alamo, but it's still an impressive, intelligent & sometimes quietly moving epic that didn't deserve its fate at the box-office.
