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Admirable film.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

No Matter How many Times I Watch This Movie I Am Always Amazed At How Like Kurt Vonnegut's Book It Is ... Billy (William Pilgram) Finds Himself Being Tossed Back And Forth Along His Life's Timeline, Reliving His Past As Well As His Future ... There Is So Much About This Story That Is Relevant To All Our Lives ... How Universally Large A Life Can Be In It's Impact On Others And Yet How Minuscule Our Lives Are In The Scope Of Existence ... Vonnegut Touches Not Only On Historical Moments In Our Lives But More Importantly On The Minute Details ... What We Realize (Without Having It Bashed Over Our Heads) Is That Billy Is Us And We, All Of Us Are Billy ... Vonnegut Address' The Most Important Of All Questions, Should We Make Up For A Past, Work For A Better Tomorrow, Should We Have Been Born There Instead Of Here, Should We Make A Left Turn Instead Of A Right Turn, Etc .... In This Brilliant Work That Reminds Us Of The Total Lack Of Control That We Actually Have In Our Lives And The Illusion We Create By Thinking That We Can Control Our Lives We Find A Kind Of Peace And Flexibility That Allows Us To Address The Answer To The Above Questions ... That It Does Not Matter, The Only Thing That Matters Is That We Make The Best In All Ways Of The Only Thing That Does Matter ... Now ...

What a weird yet compelling movie, it made me laugh how Juvenalian satire it is about life, death, and the time we have as humans. It doesn't take itself so serious, but the movie is so full of symbolism, imagery, and allegory that not only does the main character Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) feel tripping, but the audience watching this film as well. Slaughterhouse-Five directed by George Roy Hill is based on the Kurt Vonnegut's novel also known as Slaughterhouse Five and the Children's Crusade. Vonnegut loves the film as well calling it a flawless harmonious translation. The entire prologue in which Vonnegut decides to name his story 'The Children's Crusade' is omitted from the film to focus more on the film first-person narrative from the point of view of Billy Pilgrim, who becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences the events of his life in a seemingly random order, such as the alien planet of Tralfamadore, Dresden during World War II, and life in Ilium, New York. The movie jumps around scene by scene between them, which at first doesn't make any sense, until the end. Still it can be a bit confusing, if not paying attention. It's hard to analysis the film as we don't know if Billy is time-tripping or suffering from post traumatic stress disorder due to him having survive two major disasters. The first disaster was surviving the Dresden firebombing by the Allies during the war. The firebombs were meant to destroy German morale. Kurt Vonnegut's slaughterhouse debates if the bombings were right or unmoral. The second is a plane crash that the film suggest cause Billy to lose his mind. The movie like the book is just of series of guesses. The book sequence in the novel where Pilgrim watches a movie about a bombing mission in World War II forward and then backward is also omitted from the film due to time constraints of the film would be nice to see why he thinks he time-trips. Several other elements of the novel are missing from the film. Kilgore Trout is a failed science fiction writer from the novel Breakfast with Champions who Billy meets. His visit with Billy might explain why Billy believes in Tralfamadore and aliens due to his sci-fiction background. Since the film doesn't mention him, the whole Tralfamadore idea comes out of nowhere and seem out of place with the WWII scenes. We the audience learn so much from them about time's relation to the world, as a fourth dimension, and death's indiscriminate nature. Tralfamadorians appear in several Vonnegut novels. Other Vonneguts novel characters are also guest stars in the film like Howard Campbell, Bertram Copeland Rumfoord and Eliot Rosewater with minor roles. Still, the film does keep some of the very interesting characters that made the book famous such as funny manic dog killing Paul Lazzaro, crazy driver wife Valencia Merble, and pornstar Montana Wildhack. The film does well in imagery as in one scene, Billy sees a pornographic film with Montana and later Montana happens to be taken by Tralfamadorian for him to mate with. He might have 'dreams' up Montana being with him due to his sex-less marriage with Valencia. In another scene Billy helps some of his buddies to collect a huge grandfather clock and get buried under the clock. Although the image created by this scene (the pressure of time on Billy Pilgrim) fits nicely into the plot, this part is also not found in the novel. In my opinion it's better than the famous Poo-Tee-Weet bird in the novel. Slaughterhouse-Five debates fate, free will, and the illogical nature of human beings. By naming the unheroic hero Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut contrasts John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" with Billy's story. Billy's solution to the problems of the modern world is to "invent a heaven, out of 20th century materials, where Good Technology triumphs over Bad Technology. His scripture is Science Fiction, Man's last, good fantasy". At its heart Slaughterhouse Five is the story of Billy's search for happiness. The film completely shatters the mold of traditional storytelling, and isn't restricted by a beginning, middle and end structure so in a way, it's works for this film. Check it out if u want, and you find yourself pilgrimage throughout your life asking the same thing.

.Iconic author Kurt Vonnegut falls in a similar category as other well known authors who's novel gets adapted from movies and leaves critics wondering if they will keep up with what was written in their novels. Vonnegut's novels are provocative in the sense that which we utilize our cognitive state of mind as we challenge the madness behind mankind's ways of thinking. Surely not suited for audience members to go to theaters just to be entertained.Such experiments of trying to bring a qualitative novel to the big screen has been a victim of utter failure over the years (like "Slapstick" for example). But with the dedicated skill and bravery of competent director George Roy Hill, it is safe to say that "Slaughterhouse-Five" was given life to the screen without anyone feeling any sense of insult or humiliation and leaves its audience the freedom to draw their own conclusions of what was revealed here. Overall it was a pleasant compliment to Vonnegut's work and deserves all the praises it's been given to fans and critics. The characters in the movie were everything that I expected from the novel Theperformances were just as special in bringing the novel to life.Michael Sacks was really believable in his performance as Billy Pilgrimand Sharon Gans was convincing as his rotund and domineering wife,Valenica Pilgrim. Billy has become withdrawn with his time, shiftingback and forth of his life From the catastrophic events of World War IIto the generic struggles of married life, the film succeeds in shiftingthe radom events chronologically way up where we find Mr. Pilgrimlocated on the nearby planet of Tralfamadore along with a scantily cladMontana wildhack (Valerie Perrine). The accuracy speaks volumes towardsthe numerous supporting characters that was well complimented fromVonnegut's novel.Novice Vonnegut fanatics might be turned of by the unsettling narrative, but the detail that was taken into consideration might even flabbergast the average moviegoer after this equally poignant Vonnegut movie adaptation..

An extremely loyal interpretation of the classic Vonnegut novel that skirts the issue of explaining its complicated premise by way of a quick typewriter scene. Seeing it on-screen somehow makes everything seem less surreal than it was in print, even when the scene randomly shifts from a Nazi POW camp to a sharp, sparsely-decorated single room apartment on the surface of an alien world. Really just a handful of loosely-related tales from the protagonist's life, it's four distinct scenes tied together by jarring moments of deja vu and a strange, out-of-step sense of humor. A curious adventure, if only due to the sheer absurdity of its most profound scenes, it fails to stand out in any other meaningful ways. It's more straightforward and matter of fact than the book, and lacks many of the wry grins and quirks that made the original work stand apart. What works in print doesn't always translate so literally to the screen.