Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The majority of WW2 films are corny, sanitized and sickeningly trite. This is one of the most realistic I've seen. Great acting and study of characters that make for an engrossing film. Having watched and read both film and book 'Unbroken', I felt it portrayed the storming of the island as described by the eye witnesses of the time. Some of the scenes with the Japanese prisoners were less believable but it deserves a much higher rating than shown.

I was surprised that Halls of Montezuma was not an adapted play since a great deal of the action takes place in a cave that serves as a battalion headquarters where Colonel Richard Boone is trying to extract information from prisoners.That in itself wasn't easy because the Japanese were not known for surrendering. Boone gives an order to try and take prisoners on this landing on an unnamed Pacific island.Richard Widmark's company finds a few of them and it's a rough go and several members of Widmark's command die in the mission. The Japanese are firing a lot of rockets from a hill and the bombing from planes doesn't do any good. Before the big push towards that hill can be made those rockets have to be dealt with.A lot of promising young players from 20th Century Fox were in Widmark's platoon like Robert Wagner, Jack Palance, Richard Hylton, Skip Homeier, Martin Milner. Some make it and some don't. There are several flashback sequences showing these guys in their civilian lives and earlier in the war.At the headquarters there's also quite an assortment, Jack Webb a war correspondent, Philip Ahn an articulate Japanese prisoner who is a baseball player in civilian life and looking decidedly out of place there is the urbane Reginald Gardiner replete with cigarette holder. He's along for the ride because he's an expert on Japanese culture and psychology and speaks the language.Halls of Montezuma is a good, not a great war film. Three performances do stand out. Karl Malden as the veterinarian now serving as a medic and career marine Bert Freed and his sergeant Neville Brand.

The hate content in war films which had up to this point been reserved mainly for the Germans was now temporarily re-channeled in the direction of the Japanese, and the Pacific War was revived in aggressive patriotism in films like Allan Dwan's "Sands of Iwo Jima," Fritz Lang's "I Shall Return, " Nicolas Ray's "Flying Leathernecks," and Lewis Milestone's "Hall of Montezuma." The focus of Milestone's film is the capture of a site on which the enemy have set up rocket sites… A Marine patrol is sent out, with orders to take prisoners and bring them back for interrogation… Much of the movie's appeal arises from its future ensemble cast… There is Richard Widmark, a former schoolteacher who fights the war with his head in a vice; Karl Malden, the medical corpsman who knows what psychological migraine is; Reginald Gardiner, the British-born sergeant, who can speak Japanese; Robert Wagner, the young radio man who kept pestering his fellow soldiers; Skip Homeier, the hotshot 'pretty boy' who is in a hurry to get home; Jack Palance, the protective and grateful boxer who wants his pal as his future manager; Richard Hylton, the student who handled fear once; Richard Boone, the desperate colonel who insists on taking prisoners; Neville Brand, the strong sergeant blinded during a bomb attack; and Bert Freed, the best fighter man but before and after "the no-good money burnin', gin-drinkin' horsehead…" All the characters solved their hang-ups with bouts of heroism, and Widmark was on hand to lead the last attack with a rousing battle-cry "Give 'em hell!"

The fog of war is redefined down to what is left of a US Marine Corps Platoon on a Japanese held island. The lieutenant, a former chemistry teacher and seven members of his original command must find where the Japanese have hidden rockets before the battalion attacks. Characterizations are typical of a Lewis Milestone move and avoid the formula cliches. To the platoon are added a combat historian and a suave, debonaire interpreter. Many future stars are featured in this stirring film at early stages in their careers. As an Reserve Army Colonel and a high school chemistry teacher this film strikes home. Do they find the rockets? You must see this film to find out.