5/5 the greatest movie ever made !
  by ilyas malgit (Adana, Yuregir Turkey)
This is the art of movie making, this is what the cinema was meant for. 100% entertainment! If the highest rating a movie can get is 5 stars, this one deserves 6!! I've seen it about 15 times in different formats including pan&scan vhs, single dvd, laser disc and now this special edition. With the inclusion of newly dubbed 18-minute footage and 5.1 mix, this edition is a must have. Even though there are some negative reviews about new voices of Clint and Eli (sounding very old , even distracting from the movie), I believe it is partly psychological since you know which scenes are newly dubbed. If you are going to watch it first time and don't know which scenes are new, you won't get distracted or maybe will not recognize the difference at all. Some of the sound effects have been altered for the new mix (especially gunshots - a trademark of Leone) which is the only complaint I have. If it was possible to keep them intact in 'For A Few Dollars More' 5.1 mix, it could as well have been done for 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'. But anyway it was great to watch the movie this way too. I take it as a different taste rather than comparing it with the 161-minute mono cut. I wish they could also save the 'Socorro' sequence and even more scenes. This film could last 5 hours and I still could watch it with excitement, not getting bored a second.
So; keep your single disc releases but also experience the new 179-minute release with 5.1 mix. (Second disc is loaded with extras worth to see)


4/5 A memorable Western with a peculiar international flair
  by Christopher Culver
Sergio Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY is a classic Western film. Clint Eastwood is the Good, aka the Man with No Name, a taciturn wanderer who follows his own sense of justice. His opposite is Angel Eyes (Lee van Cleef), the Bad, a brutal mercenary who kills anyone who stands in the way of making ready cash. The film's comic relief is Tuco (Eli Wallach), the Ugly, a Mexican bandit wanted in several states who ends up inadvertently doing some good turns. At the height of the Civil War, as Union and Confederate armies battle each other in the West, these three men vie for an abandoned cache of gold coins.

The film is especially memorable for its pace and cinematography. The opening scene, for example, juxtaposes closeups of anxious faces with vast panoramas of the Western landscape, and 10 minutes passes before a single word is said. It's like Tarkovsky transplanted to a vastly different setting. That's not to say it's all so serious, though. In a sense the film is a "two buddies on the road" movie, with Tuco the wisecracker and Eastwood's character the straight man. It is also a war film, with Leone apparently sparing no expense in presenting a realistic image of hundreds of men charging each other on the battlefield. This is not among the greatest films I've ever seen, but it's very well-made.

Because this is a "spaghetti Western", an effort in the genre realized by a joint Italian-Spanish production team with American lead actors, the film has some curious qualities. Because of the use of locals, all the faces of Civil War soldiers are so clearly Italian, even though Italian immigration into the US picked up only later. The Mexican bandit Tuco is played by a Jew from New York, and furthermore Leone mocks the character's Catholicism in a way that Americans of the era would, although the faith would be in no way foreign to his Italian audience.

The Extended Cut present on this DVD release adds 18 minutes to the version of the film hitherto distribution, though I discovered THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY through this release and couldn't tell you exactly how this changes the film. The extras are quite good, presenting Leone's art in a wider context.

5/5 Great transfer and packaging
  by MGF (Argentina)
************This is a review for the product, not the movie***************

The image quality is really improved compared to the previous releases. This new amazing transfer is crisp clear and mantains the color and tone of the film. The audio is enhanced with a 5.1 track, and you can tell that the sound people did a really good job replicating some of the sound effects to achieve the 5.1 sensation, since the original track was mono.
The only thing I regret is that this is an extended cut of the film (a few scenes were added and Eastwood and Wallach returned to make the dubbing). This is not a bad thing at all, but it would have been nice to have also the theatrical cut, wich is the one everybody is familiarized with. Don't get me wrong, the additional scenes mantain the same quality as the rest of the film, but... they are still additional scenes. Plus, you can really tell that Tucco and Blondie sound like old men on those scenes.

The package is great, you get a cardboard cover (wich is not the cheap one, and has some emboss on the title), a booklet and several postcards that feature the posters from different countries, like France, Italy, Japan, and more.

Disc one contains the movie and a commentary, plus the original italian audio (only Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef are dubbed here).

Disc two contains the extras wich not all are extremely interesting, but worth to watch at least once: A few documentaries about the old west that make no mention to the movie and a few documentaries about Leone, Morricone and the restoring of the film.

Overall, a great edition at a great price. I'm from Argentina and let me tell you, even with the shipping and the currency convertion, this movie was an amazing deal.

4/5 1967 Leone Western.
  by Dr. Feelgood (USA)
This was the best Leone film of the series, starring Clint Eastwood. Most noteable for the look of the film, using close-ups, cut to: master shots, on the wide screen format. It had a European quality to it, even though it was a Western, due to the fact that the director was Italian. In any case, the film although lengthy, is easy to watch, because the story carries the viewer along rather well. I bought a copy of the dvd at a grocery store for $9.99, but disc two, doesn't really interest me, with it's special features. After that, I saw the single disc at Best Buy for only $6.99, which would have been the better deal.

5/5 One of the greatest Westerns
  by David Bonesteel (Fresno, CA United States)
A trio of outlaws (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach) crosses paths in a search for $200,000 of buried Confederate gold. As they travel, sometimes alone and sometimes together, across a surreal landscape made anarchic by war, director Sergio Leone presents a world in which all of man's finer instincts and civilized institutions seem to have failed. Our three protagonists keep faith in one thing only--the existence of treasure at the end of their quest--and they go to heroic lengths in service of that faith. Leone's despairing vision is fascinating, and as an action movie, it is just downright terrific.