I'm absolutely shocked by Inchon's terrible rating and the reviews portraying it as the worst thing in the history of mankind. OK, so it's not a masterpiece, but Jesus!... there are Adam Sandler movies that didn't get this kind of flak!I'm not gonna talk about the budget, who paid for what and all that stuff. Let's stick to the movie. The major problem is Robin Moore's awful screenplay. The war subject is treated superficially and the love story is dull and not believable. Ben Gazarra is an American officer stationed in South Korea. He's married to Jacqueline Bisset but their marriage sinks and he hooks up with a local girl. When the Korean war starts, he feels obligated to take his wife out of the country. They meet, talk for about five minutes and get back together. It's ridiculous, not to mention the fact that Bisset and Gazarra had zero chemistry.As far as the rest of the cast goes, Olivier does a great job as Macarthur. I never really cared for his American accent but he was such a consummate actor, such a master of his craft that even when he was not at the top of his game (he was ill at the time) it's still a pleasure to watch him perform. It's also a delight to see the wonderful Toshirô Mifune, even if they gave him a tiny role that doesn't do him justice. The Korean girls - actresses Karen Kahn (Lim) and Lydia Ley (Mila) - are pretty good. David Janssen e Richard Roundtree have small, rather pointless roles.Battle scenes are above average. Jerry Goldsmith's musical score is good. The editing sucks; apparently more than half an hour of finished film ended up on the cutting room floor. Sound is also weird; machine gun shots sometimes remind us of cartoon gunshots.Overall it's a flawed production but very far from being the horrible disaster people made it out to be. To my knowledge it hasn't been released on VHS or DVD, and that's very wrong. The worst thing I could say about Inchon is that rather than a Hollywood expensive A-list movie, it looks like a Lifetime movie of the week. Or a B movie. That's it.If you have a chance to watch it, by all means do.

I recall the one weekend that this movie was in theatrical release. I was on a first date and there were absolutely no date-worthy movies playing. A bunch of well-dressed students (whom I later guessed to be Moonies)were lined up to see this one. Upon investigation I saw the producers were raffling off a Rolls Royce to all who bought a ticket. "Ooohh," she said. "Wouldn't it be fun if we won a car by going to see a movie?" OK, so I relented.In retrospect even if we had won the car it wouldn't have been worth it. It wasn't even laughably bad. It was just pathetic, watching Sir Laurence's career spiraling down the money pit. Just a few short months after watching him flounder in "The Jazz Singer," here he was with an inch of pancake makeup spouting religious homilies.It was a time when MacArthur was out of favor and the Cold War was in full swing, so the Reverend Moon was determined to use the latter to rectify the former. I am certainly not an expert on the military history of the Korean War so make no claims as to its historical accuracy. But with the over the top moralizing here I sat there knowing I was being manipulated, brainwashed, whatever.And, on cue, the proselytizing for the Unification Church began as soon as the final credits rolled.Uck, what a sickening experience. I never went out with her again.Fortunately Sir Laurence rebounded shortly after with Clash Of The Titans and a few other not-quite-so-bad performances on made-for-TV movies so we aren't stuck with this as the last impression of this great actor.

Inchon exists in at least three versions, all of them very rare: a 90 minute British video version called "Operation Inchon"; a 105 minute version; and the full 140 minutes version released theatrically in 1981. This is a review of the 140 minute version. The past twenty years or so have turned Inchon into one of the film industry's great jokes. Its huge budget, and the meagre box office returns it made, have also destined it to forever be remembered as the biggest flop of all-time. If ever a film deserved to be labelled as "infamous", then Inchon is it. Laurence Olivier top-bills as Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Highly decorated for his WWII heroics, MacArthur is called upon to repel an army of communist forces from North Korea who have invaded their South Korean neighbours in 1950. Against the will of his colleagues, MacArthur masterminds an ambitious landing at the awkwardly-situated port of Inchon. Interwoven into this invasion story are several sub-plots, including the story of Barbara Hallsworth (Jacqueline Bisset), an American lady who leads a group of orphans to safety, and her husband Maj. Frank Hallsworth (Ben Gazzara), who is ordered to seize and hold a strategically important lighthouse in Inchon harbour. It is extraordinary that a budget of over $45 million was allocated to such a badly scripted film. The dialogue is utterly laughable, almost in the style of an exceptionally bad, cheesy TV mini-series. Left helpless in the firing line by the terrible script, the actors (many of them greatly talented) give undisciplined performances. Olivier's turn as MacArthur, for example, is surreal in its awfulness. The battle scenes are done on a big scale but fail to convey authenticity or realism. And, worst of all, there's a peculiar religious subtext as MacArthur repeatedly rants on about the God-given justness he senses in the cause of America and her allies. The film has curiosity value (it's perversely interesting to see so many stars in such deep trouble) but beyond that it offers nothing worth your time.

It's inescapable that "Inchon" is a bad movie. I mean, look at its pedigree: *Funded by Moonies (Reverend Sun Myung Moon dipped deep in his pockets for this one), *A morbidly stupid script (originally authored by the screenwriter for "The Happy Hooker"? Please....), *A director working under haphazard circumstances (Young did great with the James Bond films but language barriers ruined countless shots and drove the cost of the film sky high),*A cast that is capable of greatness but not in this instance (Bisset, Gazzara, Roundtree, Janssen, Mifune, Olivier!!!!),*And a budget that most frequently disappears from the screen (how can $48 million not show on the screen? This is the movie that answers that question).I saw this many moons ago (get it? Ha ha....) at my local theater on a double bill with "The Last American Virgin" (yes, you read right) and I think "Virgin" suffered from the association.And Laurence Olivier has been in great things ("Wuthering Heights", "Rebecca", "Henry V", "Richard III", "Spartacus", "Sleuth") but has also been in his share of very bad things ("The Betsy", "The Boys from Brazil", "Dracula"/1979, "The Jazz Singer", "The Jigsaw Man", "Wild Geese II"). But as a putty-faced, mascara-smeared, gravel-voiced variation of General Douglas McArthur (more like his Loren Hardeman character from "The Betsy"), Olivier washes away all he'd accomplished with his Shakespeare work and takes on the guise of a wax dummy (with almost as much expressiveness).And the movie itself? Forget everything you thought you knew about the Korean War and all its planning, maneuvers and troop placements. It's just about soldiers running back and forth, explosions, ships sailing far out of camera range and Douglas McArthur reciting the Lord's Prayer. Oh, and Bissett bouncing around. That's entertainment (sort of)!On top of all of this, there was always the fear in its first-run status that Moonies would be posted at every theater in America to recruit Moonies-to-be. I escaped that but not the movie itself.In the end, I can see why this one isn't on video or TV or even bootlegged on Ebay. "Inchon" may have been an important battle but the only thing the movie is important for is showing that it can waste more money that "Heaven's Gate". Congratulations!No stars for "Inchon" - it shall NOT return.