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pmarin
Reviews
Desert Thunder (1999)
Just like a James Bond movie, only NOT
Yes, it's just like a James Bond movie, except:
even more implausible plot
bad guys can't act
good guys can't act
both are annoying anyway
or maybe it's just the script (there WAS one?)
humor isn't as good
cheap special effects
no suspense, no big ending
Seriously, I walked out of the room for a minute, came back to find the credits scrolling. I had no idea that just before that I had been watching the great ending.... there wasn't any!
The special effects all look the same - like barrels of gasoline blowing up (or whatever that frequently-used explosion effect is). It doesn't matter what's blowing up -- plane, building, car, outhouse. It looks like they built really cheap props and then just put exploding barrels in everything.
They talk about things that would sound like good effects, only you never see them because they would be too expensive to do. For example, you see a surface-to-air missile launcher sitting there. Then you hear the pilot say that there's missiles heading towards him and he takes evasive action (or maybe just talks about taking evasive action -- don't remember). Then you see the missile launcher blowing up (see paragraph above). But you never see the missile launch or fly towards the plan, because that's a more difficult effect.
And so on. But if you're really bored and like simple scripts and lots of things blowing up in a not too spectacular fashion, this movie isn't so bad.
Rain (2001)
Fairly good war+dog movie
I'd say a fairly good movie, on a fairly good script, with a small cast of fairly good, fairly unknown actors. Just didn't seem "great" in any way, but it does relate to a side of the Vietnam war that most people aren't aware of. The statistic given was that 4500 dogs served in the war. I certainly was not aware of this, or in what capacity they were used. I found the movie worthwhile for the telling of this story.
Didn't know about the "Animal Planet" production, but anyone expecting this to be a "nice doggie" movie for the whole family should note that it still feels like a war movie with a dog, rather than a dog movie with a war. Considerable suspense and some action, but no extremely violent scenes. But the "little girl with dog" scenes that start the movie aren't typical of the rest of it. (Which may be a good thing).
The "love story" does seem a bit contrived and artificial, but it did provide a break from the "military guys fighting / military guys talking with other military guys" which otherwise would make up the majority of the movie.
Incidentally, I did notice a "military content advisor" on the credits, and quite a few military agencies given thanks, so I'm not sure what was going on with the weapons inconsistencies that another reviewer mentioned, but I'm no expert on these so I would never have noticed.
Gave it a 6.