What a beautiful movie!

Overrated

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The "movie" (it was a TV series converted in movie for other locations) has lots of things about the 60s? Yes, plenty of nostalgia. The movie presents many historical facts about the sixties? Yes, too much. The movie has 60s aesthetics? Yes, a lot, mainly the music, which is great (the best thing in fact). The movie has a plot? No.This is the problem with the movie is that there is not plot. They try to link many important happenings of the 60s with the history of two families, but the characters are shallow and the drama is artificial. Incredible enough, the characters were the main protagonists in many important moments of the history, making it cliché.The movie is good for those who don't know a thing about the sixties and want to learn more about the culture and history, in a superficial way. Of course it gives a dreamy and magic representation of the decade, so it is advisable to consult and encyclopedia after watching the movie to get your feet back on the ground. Maybe those who lived in the 60s may like it for the nostalgia, but certainly will not like the absurd and exaggerations. Anyway, you can always excuse yourself by saying that you watched because the soundtrack, because it is worthy the time watching a movie with no plot.

Oh well - this series is crap, i mean, absolutely. They should have been awarded for worst script, worst acting, worst interpretation of history, worst use of stereotypes, worst use of a fake mustache in an attempt to duplicate the Tom Cruise of the 4th July - but, miracle!, making him walk - worst cinematography, worst art directing, worst costumes, worst editing, worst leftism (i mean, this is how you lived your '68? You shoulda stayed home! C'mon dude, where's the politics), worst use of Bob Dylan clips (clips from the seventies in a sixties movie?). If you wanna be a die-hard nostalgic hippie substantially not caring about most of the political facets of it, if you can't read a book or you'd fall asleep, if you hate documentaries, if Woodstock to you is a little yellow bird, if you want to see some 80s haircuts misplaced in time, well this might be for you. I mean, Hair was a musical, a fantastic movie, it was not intended to be a portrait of a generation - but hell, it was 1000 times more realistic than this. Hey, if all the people in the USA during the sixties were dumb as the characters of this crap i think at least somebody had a good reason to fly to Vietnam: not hearing anything anymore from dummies country! I guess the sixties were definitely better than this, but, i mean, what was the worst year in the whole history? The less interesting year of all time? I don't know, but put that year in the hands of a medium-level director and he'll do something more enjoyable. Shame on whoever worked on this - none of you did a good job!

This was a great, but not very in-depth, overlook of the sixties with examples in the hippie movement, Vietnam veterans, African-American freedom fighters, the intellectual radical left and traditionalists. Most of the actors gave solid performances, especially Jeremy Sisto. Very nice full-circle story. My only beef with the film was that, as usual in Hollywood films, the end trivializes the rest of the content.

I accidently felt on this movie on TV, and I wasn't able to leave it.... It's really an excellent movie which makes people learning about american's history with the Vietnam war, the flower power's time, the racism's fight.... It illustrates the conflict of generation, of political opinion, of race which took place in the 60's....I'm born in 1980 so I didn't know all that stuff before...In france, USA's history is not a priority and that movie really learned me a lot of facts ! By the way, I think all the actors are great; especially Jordana Brewster, Josh Hamilton and Jerry O'Connell. Now I can see this film more then 1 time each day !! It's really great.... what a shame it only appeared on TV not in cinemas...