Don't listen to the negative reviews

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The first 10 minutes of a film, in my opinion, is the most important part of any production. It establishes your characters, the tone, the setting, everything. The first 10 minutes of All Quiet on the Western Front is easily one of the best openings to any film I have ever seen in the past few years.The doors open and the camera pushes in to reveal hordes of soldiers moving in formation, marching for their country. It dollies to the left, following them as if to show us what to expect for the next 2 hours. The pull back and reveal a professor sermoning to the young and impressionable minds of the new generation about how honorable it is to serve. The benefits, the courage, the prizes, the glory. Long, intimate close-ups of each student show every perspective. Crying, smiling, even the in-betweeners that don't know what to feel.They take this romanticized idea of enlisting in the armed forces and sing their hearts out with glee and dance through their classroom screaming with joy in their wide-eyed childish wonderment. A wide shot as the boys leave their classroom and their chanting begins to fade out. An empty classroom only echoes the cheers of joy that it once held, while the audience watches in fear for it knows these young gentlemen are only walking to certain death.

Saw this movie at a college Political Science class. Don't remember much from it, but do recall it for its powerful acting, steady-paced plot, and meaningful story of heroism, drama, and message on the dire consequences of war. I could be a tear-jerker as well.Grade B

I kicked off my February, which is always Oscar's month, with All Quiet on the Western Front. Director Lewis Milestone's wartime drama took home the Academy's top prize for 1930. Capturing the essence of the individuals directly involved in the conflict, All Quiet on the Western Front, is a magnificent look at the effects of war both on soldiers physicality and mentality. A poignant look at a time when many fighting were just young boys trying to be heroes, All Quiet on the Western Front seems worthy of the gold statuette.Opening inside a classroom, a professor is convincing a classroom of impressionable teenagers to enlist, revealing the first unfortunate aspect of WWI. In the cloak of patriotism, a group of young men vow to support their country in war. Many of them end up permanently injured, some losing limbs, all of them end up emotionally scarred. The incredible part of this is that it was 1930. Seeing such a raw portrayal was incredible. The shots of each young man's face were well-done and beautifully executed each time. A well-done film, All Quiet on the Western Front is definitely one to see.

Louis Milestone's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is a testament not only to the resilience of author Erich Maria Remarque, who was wounded five times, but also to the determination by Universal Pictures producer Carl Laemmle, Jr., son of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle, to produce prestige films. If any movie demonstrated the absurdity of war, this movie does with images and scenes that are unforgettable. Told from the perspective of the Kaiser's army, we follow a school boy and his pals from the class room to the trenches. Initially, an elderly, spectacled, school teacher raves about how they must defend the pride of the fatherland as soldiers can be seen marching outside past the school. "Now, my beloved class, this is what we must do. Strike with all our power. Give every ounce of strength to win victory before the end of the year. It is with reluctance that I bring this subject up again. You are the life of the fatherland, you boys. You are the iron men of Germany. You are the gay heroes who will repulse the enemy when you are called upon to do so. It is not for me to suggest that any of you should stand up and offer to defend his country. But I wonder if such a thing is going through your heads. I know that in one of the schools, the boys have risen up in the classroom and enlisted in a mass. But, of course, if such a thing should happen here, you would not blame me for a feeling of pride." Paul (Lew Ayers) and then his pals encounter the true horrors of war. These horrors include not only the actual battlefield but the devastating horrors on their own side of the battlefield. Later, we watch as our protagonists struggle to make sense out of war and how it started. The most captivating character of the film is Kat (Louis Wolheim) who steals the film. Compared with contemporary films, "All Quiet on the Western Front" lacks the brutality of war, aside from one shot of two severed hands clinging to a barbed wire fence. Like most memorable war pictures, the action is confined to the trenches with no scenes played out in map rooms as general pontificate about strategy. Milestone would later helm more war movies, including "The Purple Heart" (1944), "A Walk in the Sun" (1945), "Halls of Montezuma" (1950) and "Pork Chop Hill" (1959).