I looked forward to this film because Gregory Peck was a terrific actor and Douglas MacArthur was an incredibly complex and fascinating man. Unfortunately, while the movie looks very nice and Peck seemed to do a good job, the film did not seem to give that many insights into who MacArthur was nor was it a particularly thorough film about his life.

The first thing that struck me was that the film started just after WWII began. In fact, the film ended up only covering the period of early 1942 until just after his dismissal in 1951 for insubordination. What about the other 74 or so years of his long and illustrious life?! Now I do understand that Peck couldn't play a younger MacArthur because he wasn't a young man when he took this role. Unfortunately, however, there were some incredibly important events that fall into this missing time period--such as when MacArthur, on his own, attacked the so-called "Bonus Army" in 1932, his service in Mexico and WWI as well as his personal life (the film shows his wife, but this was his second wife--what about the first?). Plus, following his removal from power in 1951, the man lived another 13 years--what about them? As a result, the film comes off as rather superficial and very incomplete.

The other problem, and this actually was more serious for me, is that the character of MacArthur was tough to discern. Other than showing him as a bit of a publicity hound and a dedicated man, who was MacArthur? The only really good insight into him was that the film seemed to indicate that his clash with Truman appeared to be due to BOTH men being strong-willed--an interesting interpretation. Yes, you briefly saw his second wife and son and you could see that he loved them...but what else? Now these two problems make this film a relatively mediocre biopic. Sadly, the film did have some very nice aspects. Peck did a great job--as I'd expected. Also, the WWII and Korean segments were done well for the most part. I could nitpick because of the extensive use of grainy stock footage or the sailor on the deck of the USS Missouri in 1945 who is wearing very modern (circa 1977) glasses--but this is pretty unimportant.

For a person who has little knowledge of MacArthur, this is a worthwhile film. For ex-history teachers and WWII buffs like myself, it was pretty much a waste of time--I could have learned a lot more from a TV show about the man. Perhaps the problem was insurmountable in a movie, however, and a mini-series would be the only way to do this amazing man's career justice. There's just too much stuff to cover for a 130 minute film.