Letter: Hyping Ryan

Sir: I wonder if Brian Sibley is being fair to the vision of Steven Spielberg in saying that Saving Private Ryan was over-hyped because it contains high levels of realism in its combat scenes ("Hollywood's most over-hyped films", 15 July).

He says that this realism simply meant that you could not hear what was being said. I would presume that would be an essential element in trying to convey a sense of what it was like on the beaches of Normandy in 1944.

With only 127 words on The Phantom Menace in the last month, The Independent is clearly doing its best to avoid hype and pointless prejudgements. We should, presumably, ignore the full front page article in the Review section when the film was released in the USA ("May the farce be with you", 18 May).