Could have been awesome

Just watched this movie for the first time since it came out. There are so many good elements to it, and it could have been such a great movie. But unfortunately it falls short on many levels.
The script has too many obvious similarities to Lawrence of Arabia and Apocalypse Now, yet the direction brings it nowhere close to the aforementioned masterpieces.
It seems to me as if the studio made this film, not John Milius, but I could be wrong and he could have simply done a crappy job with this movie.

The potential for greatness just oozes out of the film. Unfortunately the ooze we get is a different film. Not a bad historical action film. Beautiful jungle, exciting context etc... Just poor execution of the elements.
And please, those island women over-overdressed and over-sminked.