“Apocalypse Now is a movie that drove Coppola to the brink of both financial ruin and actual madness. Its first release was two-and-a-half hours, an overwhelming psychedelic horror vision of will and inhumanity. “Apocalypse Now Redux,” released in 2001, was over three hours, more diffuse, more of a thematic and narrative incoherence, but also mostly galvanically hallucinatory. And now we have “Apocalypse Now Final Cut,” hitting almost exactly the three-hour mark. It’s also a 4K restoration from the original negative, with newly remastered sound.
“As magnificent as the movie looks, sounds, and feels, this cut expands upon and unpeels the movie’s weaknesses both as story and meditation on Vietnam. It’s a trimmed-down version of the “Redux” cut’s structure.
“The movie still dazzles, and contains some genuine nuggets of philosophical provocation. It doesn’t answer the question “Why are/were we in Vietnam,” but what Western work of art or reportage truly has? As for the question
“Why did Francis Ford Coppola delve into the jungles of the Philippines, endangering himself and everyone around him,” this film definitively answers it. It’s the only question the film really can answer, after all.” - RogerEbert.com