The diversity of Kubrick's work is truly astonishing, even though the director's technical precision and steely perspective on humanity may strike uninitiated viewers as cold and even misanthropic. From the rich, black comedy of Lolita to the bleak heart of darkness explored in Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick's films almost always received mixed (and sometimes scathingly negative) reviews upon their release, only to benefit from glowing reassessment as they grew entrenched in the public consciousness. This in my eyes is some of his best work, and I am truly proud to call this film my favorite of all time. GET SOME! 10/10 +

Full Metal Jacket begins at Parris Island in South Carolina for one platoon's recruit training. We meet Sergeant Hartman (Ermey), the senior drill instructor, and several privates he decides to pick out and nickname: Joker (Modine), witty and sarcastic; Cowboy (Howard), a true marine who goes by the book, and Gomer Pyle (D'Onofrio), who's fat and foolish. After boot camp, the new Marines are shipped to Vietnam...

Stanley Kubrick's penultimate film is a cynical, cold-as-steel, often stylized view of the Vietnam War, revealing the ritualized debasement of men in the name of patriotism in the first half, and the horrific results of this patriotism in the second. The boot-camp section goes further than any film before it in showing the sadistic brutality of the training, here in the person of Sergeant Hartman (brilliantly played by real-life drill sergeant R. Lee Ermey). The film is fill of wonderful set pieces: the opening montage of the recruits being shaved bald, the recruits vulgar introduction to Hartman, Pyle's brutal beating by his fellow troops and the sniper scene in the Vietcong village (almost from the enemy's perspective) and the Mickey Mouse sing-along at the climax of the film. The film is successful in personalizing war with the selective trials of soldiers, somewhere between the realism of Platoon and the surrealism of Apocalypse Now. Joker sums up the ironic approach to the war when asked why he came to Vietnam: "I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture - and kill them."

Stanley Kubrick always managed to bring something new to his palate whenever he made a film. He brought dark comedy to the screen with Dr. Stranglove, an epic story with Spartacus, and a film more important for its efforts than box office potential in the film Paths of Glory. This is what makes Full Metal Jacket so entertaining.

Humor, horror and political commentary are the themes which shape Full Metal Jacket. From the overbearing drill sergeant to the war loving soldiers. It all seems to make sense within this film, never overstepping its bounds or being to subtle. Kubrick may have alienated some his hardcore fans with such a mainstream-type story, but then again, he helped mainstream movies take a bold step. What doesn't the current cinema owe Kubrick?