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Reviews
Noah (2014)
Nothing Remained True to Story
Noah is quite possibly the worst biblical adaption every created. There is nothing about this story that is accurate to the old testament account, except the names and the rain.
This movie is not trying to endear itself to the Christian community, quite the contrary, this picture is basically "The 10 Commandments" meets "The Lord of the Rings"! There are 15 story tall stone monsters, hybrid animals never seen before, and a fight-for-the-castle that every Lord of Rings iteration seems to have.
Noah is borderline psychotic, his Grandfather is a sorcerer, and there isn't a single reference to God, he's "The Creator", like we are all part of some maniacal video game.
Fury (2014)
VIsually Spectacular but Lacking Emotional Element
The idea behind this movie, showing an in-depth view of an M4 Sherman Tank crew in the European theatre of WWII.
The cinematography of the movie is worth watching the movie on itself; the OK Corral final showdown was hokey at best, and Hollywood drivel at worst; to the point that it's just too easy to criticize, so I won't waste any more of your time on that subject.
The main character is extremely interesting, and well done by Brad Pitt. I think the movie also does a nice job demonstrating how war is "not real" in how people act. Nobody behaves in a manner that is indicative of normal life, nobody. They use the "Typist" as a person whom juxtaposes all of the others (including civilians) whose lives have been completely turned upside down, and they are just counting down to the moment they die. This is actually really unique, and never done before in a war film, but the producers couldn't just use that element as single dramatic element of the film; too busy trying to sell tickets with silly action movie scenes, and nut just the final scene.
On a technical point, the tank warfare shown is not accurate in that 4 Shermans would have never attacked a single Wehrmacht Panzer Tiger tank in the open field on purpose, when they could have easily called-in an air attack once they ID'd the Tiger tank. The US (by the way) produced 25 times more Shermans than the Germans manufactured Tigers, so obviously Tigers were not their only tank, but were there best (by far). The truth is the Germans made a mistake in producing such a sophisticate tank for the Wehrmacht because they took too long to produce. People love to hyperbolize how inferior the Sherman was to the Tiger, but war (as the movie states very well) is about killing your enemy as quickly as possible, and not about winning design contests.
Maidentrip (2013)
Very Interesting and Unique
My family and I enjoyed this film; it's very unique in the manner in which the story unfolds. However, I'm not sure I've ever invested 90 minutes watching a film where I liked the main character less and less as the film unfolds. This is not a criticism of the Julian Schlesinger, but a compliment in telling the story true to form. Laura Decker transforms from a likable young pre-teen to a fairly unlikable teenager that believes she has "earned" everything, and is completely self sufficient seemingly blind to all of the contributions by her Father, sponsors, and a boat that sails itself.
Schlesinger creates a very interesting documentary, and for me, watching a film where the documentarian makes it seemingly obvious of their disdain for the primary character.
The Pacific (2010)
Near Miss
I have always been fascinated with American war history; watching dozens of documentaries, reading books, and of course watching any movie I can find. "Band of Brothers" I consider to be the best "movie" every filmed about war. Maybe unfair since it's actually a series, but still likely utilizing the same budget over the entire series as a single feature film, so completely fair with that in mind.
So with that in mind I was very anxious to watch "The Pacific" when the film series was announced. After watching the series, I then read both books that the series was based on; "Helmet for My Pillow" and "With The Old Breed." I then went back and watched "The Pacific" once again.
"The Pacific" really had no chance of ever comparing to "Band of Brothers" because the conceptual idea of the film series was flawed from the beginning. While "Band of Brothers" followed a single Army company through the entire European battles, "The Pacific" chooses two individuals to follow; Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge. While both were Marines in the same division (and their paths did in fact cross paths at the island of Pavavu (training and R&R location)), the addition of Robert Leckie's view of the war and arbitrarily adding Medal of Honor winner John Basilone was a significant mis-calculation.
The series really fails to gain traction by telling us mis-matched stories. Robert Leckie is not even a likable character, nor does he do anything outstanding in battle. The inclusion of Leckie is really about the wars damage to young men in war; seeing Leckie physical ailments and others around him as well as his instable personality. The inclusion of John Basilone makes no sense either since he is not in either of the aforementioned books. Furthermore, focusing on Basilone makes the series jump from one battle to another without seeing the pacific theatre in its natural progression. The worst being how they only showed enough of the battle of Iwo Jima to see Basilone die, then we cut away like the battle was over because Basilone was lost. 6,000 Americans died in order to take the small island of Iwo; this is a complete injustice of huge proportions.
"The Pacific" would have been a terrific series if the producers of the films would have completely focused on Eugene Sledge. Sledge witnesses some of the worst horrors of battle ever witnessed by a single soldier, and the series does a complete dis-service in not properly telling that story. Maybe they thought it would be too difficult to swallow for the average viewer, thusly drawing poor ratings, so they avoided it, but I think it was a serious mistake, and thusly makes the series significantly less compelling than "Band of Brothers."
Eugene Sledge was a common young man whom idealistically joins the best, the Marines to fight for his country. He goes through very good training and travels overseas to prepare for battle. On the island of Pavuvu they experience a stench of smells never imagined of rotten coconuts, stinking rats, and stone crabs everywhere. Once they depart for Peleliu he goes on to experience some of the worst fighting the U.S. has ever seen. Fighting on an island of coral that provided no place to bury dead or even dig a hole to defecate-in like a solider would normally do in battle. I don't think anyone can image that type of horror, and the series I think completely misses the mark.
Okinawa was worse! Sledge believed it could not be possible, but he was wrong; fighting on battle fields wiped-out from every living tree and shrub from constant artillery fire,and skirmishes. He saw battle fields that was strewn with dead and rotting American Marines with mud several feet thick making removing dead marines from the battlefields impossible, which Marines had really not done before as it was customary to expend great resources to remove downed American Marines.
I thought the series effecively showed how the Americans returning to the USA after VJ Day were mostly ignored, unlike the returning hero's from Europe.
While I did enjoy the series and recommend its viewing; I find it still a significant disappointment and wished the producers would have understood that the series about the Pacific Theatre of war during WWII could not ignore the fact that it was the most brutal fighitng the U.S. has ever witnessed and likely ever will.
Forces spéciales (2011)
Enjoyable for Action Adventure Emotional Drama
War movies are one of my favorite types of movie genres is war films, but I still like this movie even though it is not a good war film, but more of an emotional drama, with lots of bullets flying to pacify the person enjoys war flicks.
The name is ridiculous. The tactics displayed in this movie having nothing to do with Special Forces. Special Forces units do not behave at all like they did in this film, with the exception of being brave. The opening scene shows a stealth interdiction team pouncing on an warlords compound in Kosovo, yet while they have gained surprise in the middle of the interdiction four helicopters converge on the compound. Why? So the enemy can turn and run? Why do the stealth portion if your going to do a "smash and grab"? Then the main plot of extracting a female reporter makes no sense. In this mission they come in stealthy, extract the target, and have no support whatsoever once the mission has been "completed" and the extraction is over. Why? Ummm, I have no idea, I guess because "all" of their radios were damaged? Huh? Why would loosing your radios stop the extraction process? Regardless of radio contact they would have an extraction meet-up point. They do not determine these locations on the fly, in fact they will have several options to choose from during the mission. Yet the French military did not meet them anywhere.
Their fighting tactics were extremely flawed as well as many have already pointed out. So why did I enjoy this film? Certainly not from its military standpoint, that's for sure. The human elements of the film were strong. There was one scene where they go back and fight for a village that assisted them (ala Tears of the Sun), and the dedication of the men to each other as well as completing the mission. The reporters attachment to the soldiers is compelling as well because she did not naturally align herself with them initially being a liberal reporter.
The entire chase scenario simply never did make any sense from why they were abandoned in the first place, to why they stopped and fought on two occasions, but ran during the rest of the film, and how the Taliban forces made it across the mountain range with next to no gear. In fact in one scene, the leader of the team announced, "Welcome to Afghanistan.", when in fact they had just left Afghanistan!
But all of the military "Rambo'ish" triflings are just window dressings to a movie about the human spirit, and why people will live and die for others they barely even know, and I found that side of the film compelling. If you want to see a good movie about Special Forces, watch "Act of Valour". If you want to watch an action adventure that has a lot of shooting, but your girlfriend might actually enjoy, Special Forces is your choice :)