I haven't seen it. It might suck. But many of these reviews talk about:

a) Spike shoving the horrors of war in our face
b) Spike's war movie being too long
c) Spike's ambition being too high
d) Spike trying to outdo other great war flicks
e) Spike's vendetta against Clint Eastwood

Is it just me, or do none of these comments (a through d, at least) sound any different than other great war movie? Long, unflinching on the horrors of war, wildly ambitious... aren't these the traits of war films?

I could be wrong. I might agree with a through d at the end of the day... but a number of these reviews are dismissive and didn't very eloquently tell me much I didn't already know. I expected it to be long, I expected it to show horrors, I expected it to be ambitious, I expected it to have discussions of race, I expected a big Terence Blanchard score draped over everything. These are what one should expect of a Spike Lee war flick, imo.

AND IT MIGHT SUCK. I'm not copping pleas for Spike, who is far from perfect. But I've read one too many casually dismissive reviews that seem to imply, "LOLZ @ Spike, he can't play with the big boys."