Well, Mr. Otter and I were pretty excited about this one, and found it EXTREMELY HARD to wait for it from its first release date (Xmas 2003) until they FINALLY got it into theatres, in April of 2004. But you know, it was worth the wait.

Mr. Otter, aka Historian-On-A-Stick, knows a whole lot about this battle...he says that when he was a young historian he read so much about it he knew exactly which cannons were where, although of course (according to him) his memory has deteriorated with the intervening years...he still knows a heck of a lot about it, as I found out when we visited the original in San Antonio a while ago. I had my own personal tour guide, it was great...but I digress.

Mr. Otter was pleased with the accuracy of the battle scenes and the layout of the Alamo itself, and I was pleased with the high level of historical detail and authenticity shown by this movie.

Even more were we pleased with the amount of character development in the film. Many critics call it slow, but that is mostly because (especially rare in an action movie) a lot of time is spent on character. Billy Bob Thornton is absolutely believeable as Davy Crockett, battling the myths that are already spreading about him, and Dennis Quaid does a good job as Sam Houston. The supporting actors are excellent as well...and you have to have something else going on besides the battle, since that took less than an hour and a half, and nobody knows exactly what happened (or even how many people were there...last I heard, estimates run from 189 to 250).

Anyway. If you like this sort of thing, beautiful filmmaking, historical accuracy, good character development, attention to detail, and of course plenty of explodo at the end...don't miss this one.