Featured Audience Ratings

• Carlos M

  
  An interesting sci-fi, but which fails by only hinting at some philosophical ideas and not going deeper into them. The narrative is always fluid, with elegant scene transitions and visual rhymes, but also vague about whether it wants to be a satirical piece or not.

• Jim H

  
  World War II vet Billy Pilgrim time-jumps throughout his life on Earth and on Tralfamadore. In the list of unfilmable books I thought that Kurt Vonnegut's most famous novel would rank high on the list next to Naked Lunch, but George Roy Hill's adaptation of… More
  World War II vet Billy Pilgrim time-jumps throughout his life on Earth and on Tralfamadore. In the list of unfilmable books I thought that Kurt Vonnegut's most famous novel would rank high on the list next to Naked Lunch, but George Roy Hill's adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five diverges from the book just enough to make it a viable film and stays true enough to the novel that it still retains the plot and spirit of the original. The overall philosophy - that "life is just a collection of moments, and the trick is to remember the good and ignore the bad" - emerges both as a line of dialogue and a lesson demonstrated by the narrative structure of the film without seeming didactic. Michael Sacks's performance is exemplary, playing Billy with a naivete and innocence that is both charming and endearing. Sacks captures the origin of Billy's milquetoast nature as it emerges from a wisdom borne of timelessness. One of my friends argued that Slaughterhouse-Five is a patriarchal, misogynist book, and I disagreed because the female characters have an inner life that Vonnegut doesn't downplay. Unfortunately the film didn't keep this aspect of Vonnegut's narration, and Valencia and Montana emerge respectively as a crazy, superficial nut-job and an over-willing sexual partner. Overall, Hill's film is a fine testament to one of the great American novels.

• Randy T

  
  Like Kurt Vonnegut's novel, <i>Slaughterhouse-Five</i> blurs the line between fantasy and reality, intermingling the two until they're inseparable and indiscernible.

• Melvin W

  
  Billy Pilgrim: It's time for me to be dead for a little while. And then live again. I give you the Tralfamadorian greeting: Hello. Farewell. Hello. Farewell. Eternally connected, eternally embracing. Hello. Farewell.  "Billy Pilgrim lives- from time to time." I… More
  Billy Pilgrim: It's time for me to be dead for a little while. And then live again. I give you the Tralfamadorian greeting: Hello. Farewell. Hello. Farewell. Eternally connected, eternally embracing. Hello. Farewell.  "Billy Pilgrim lives- from time to time." I believe Slaughterhouse- Five to be a pretty good adaptation of Vonnegut's masterpiece novel. First off, Vonnegut himself said that this is a worthy adaptation and he should probably have the last word on that issue. The book is one of my personal favorites. So obviously the movie isn't going to be as good, but I didn't expect it to be. I hate when people criticize a movie for not being as good as the book. They can't include every little detail from the book, so obviously some areas are going to suffer slightly. This adaptation left out a lot of stuff, but that's normal. Only one exclusion made me slightly angry and that was Kilgore Trout; the science fiction novelist from the book. I think his inclusion would have helped a lot of people who hadn't read the book understand the story a little better. With the comparisons to the book out of the way, I have to say I was fairly satisfied with this movie. Going in, I didn't really know how this movie was going to be. The novel had to be incredibly hard to adapt, but George Roy Hill and company do a fantastic job with Vonnegut's structure. It's incoherent, yet coherent, both at the same time. Michael Sacks is everything I pictured when I read the book. He does a fantastic job. The only part of the story that did leave me a little underwhelmed was Tralfamadore. But to be fair, I wouldn't know how to make it any better; I just such high hopes for those scenes going in. It's obviously flawed, as every adaption is, but it's still a good film. If you're interested in the movie, I'd read the book also. You won't be sorry. The book is amazing and the film is a pretty solid companion piece to it. 

• AJ V

  
  This just goes to show how not all books can be adapted to film. This movie is a mess, and boring one at that. Stay away from it, and read the book instead.

• Curtis L

  
  Yet another shining example of a 70's movie trying to be weird. They always end up impossible to pay attention to.

• Tim S

  
  George Roy Hill scores again. I have not read this book so maybe I am way off, but I really enjoyed the film.

• Lafe F

  
  Interesting time travel film with some sad and miserable World War II scenes. Overall, it's engaging and reveals itself to be quite complex.

• Jennifer X

  
  kind of convoluted but good concepts. by far one of the more successful adaptations of a vonnegut book.

• Hal M

  
  Stephen Geller does a fantastic job of transforming Vonnegut's innovative novel into a screenplay; Director George Roy Hill and a good cast then take that and make a memorable motion picture. This movie ranks in my all-time top 100; I'm perplexed why the RT rating here… More
  Stephen Geller does a fantastic job of transforming Vonnegut's innovative novel into a screenplay; Director George Roy Hill and a good cast then take that and make a memorable motion picture. This movie ranks in my all-time top 100; I'm perplexed why the RT rating here isn't higher.

• Steve S

  
  Ome of Vonnegut's more imaginative stories, reasonably well dramatized.

• hawk l

  
  Intricate, harmonious and faithful rendering of Kurt Vonnegut's black anti-war "Children's Crusade" comedy. Noteworthy performances from Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman and John Dehner.

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