posted
I'm curious to know what you guys thought or if you're planning to see it. Below is a short review (I just got back from the theater), so if you haven't seen it yet, feel free to skip ahead. There are spoilers below.
Act of Valor, otherwise known as Call of Duty: the Movie, contains what may very well be some of the worst acting I have ever seen in a feature length movie. I know these guys are all trained soldiers, but there's a reason actors are actors and soldiers are soldiers and they almost never trade careers. After all, dodging bullets doesn't make you good at playing pretend on a stage, just like the reverse doesn't make you any good at taking down a terrorist. Although, if you can successfully pull both off, you have my admiration. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case.
Before I go on, let me explain something about the Call of Duty reference. There are several parts that reek of the CoD games. You get the perspective camera behind the guns (I counted at least eight of these), for example, and there's even a part where a guy gets hit and he pulls out a pistol, it shifts to his POV, and the screen begins to bleed red so that we know he's injured. It didn't take long for me to understand who the target audience of this film was. With that in mind, it isn't difficult to see how or why it will ultimately draw in money.
Anyway, the entire movie is filled with patriotism, which is probably obvious going in, but by the time it is over you feel like you've just sat through a two hour navy seals recruitment commercial. This helps us all know and understand who the good guys are, and we're spoon-fed the feelings we should be feeling, but the script is just so bad and the acting so rigid you can't help but raise an eye and wonder what exactly the director was thinking. Did he know how bad it was? Did he even care? My guess is that it didn't matter. Everything about the script in this movie felt like it was tacked on simply because the producers (or whoever) wanted to make a movie that could appeal to the ridiculous success of Modern Warfare and all other like-minded properties.
As I said, the acting is horrendous. It's like watching one of those old B-movies, except it's not a B-movie; it's a big-budget, studio film. You expect some quality, but there isn't any. There are a few known actors playing background characters, and they get some build-up (even though they serve almost no real purpose in the actual plot by the time the film is over), but the acting of the main Seal team is so bad that you forget about them and instead focus on the wooden faces of the protagonists. When the acting in a film is so insanely bad that you are completely drawn out of it and your mind can't help but focus on how bad it actually is, there's clearly a problem with the film.
In fact, while I walking away from this, I thought about all the other movies and television shows I've seen over the years and the actors who have been a part of them. I thought instantly about Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad, then George Clooney and Bruce Willis. I thought about all those 70's action films, like Apocalypse Now and Fullmetal Jacket, and what it must have taken to create something so interesting and well-done. Then I thought about what I'd just seen and I started to wonder if there would ever be another truly well done war film, or if this was the best Hollywood could muster.
I think what erked me the most was the ending, which threw a lot of patriotic scenes at the audience. We were given a funeral, a few cheesy speeches that could have been taken from any other film about sacrifice, a lot of people crying, and even a "dedication" to all the fallen soldiers, which closed off with a giant panoramic list of every navy seal who died post-911. It was obvious audience manipulation, and it was flawlessly done. The theater cheered at the end, not because of the plot or because the heroes won, but because they felt guilty and patriotic. It was kind of like watching Passion of the Christ with a group of people from your local church and being too afraid or ashamed to be the person who thought it sucked.
Anyway, I wanted to say something about it before it was completely out of my head so I thought I'd share my thoughts with all of you. I don't pretend to be an expert on film, but I like to think I know what a good movie is when I see it. However, I'm interested to know what you guys thought, if you agreed with my assessment, and whether or not you plan on seeing it, despite what I've said.
posted
It's sad that movie studios aren't really willing to make an American war movie where Americans aren't at least sort of asking for it if not outright monsters. Because I gotta tell you, Jeff, that's what I think of when I think of films like Apocalypse Now and FMJ (also more recent treats like Restrepo, Rendition, Jarhead, Valley of Elah, the list goes on.)
I'm not saying I need war films to whitewash everything and paint us in a perfect glowing light, but it seems that they relentlessly go the opposite direction. The only exceptions I can think of are WW2 films (the one time there was an enemy even worse than the USA!) and films that try to show the camaraderie of soldiers (despite whatever horrific atrocities their government is making them commit).
It gets old. It gets really old, frankly.
So I had vaguely high hopes for this flick. I haven't seen it yet, but I hoped it would buck this trend. And it's really sad to find out that, bucking the trend or not, it's apparently terrible and pandering to the Modern Warfare craze.
posted
Dan, now that you mention it, you do have a point. However, if you really think about it, those films reflect the time periods in which they were made (or that they were made about). World War 2 movies typically show Americans in a very positive light, sympathizing with the soldiers and their struggle, because that was an honorable war and it was (and still is) generally viewed as being worth the sacrifice. Vietnam and the Korean War, on the other hand, were not, which can be seen in the previously mentioned films (Apocalypse Now, Fullmetal Jacket). So you have to consider that when you're watching them.
I could be wrong, but that's how I look at those period films.
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And I tend to forgive the classics (FMJ and others) a little more than I forgive the recent tripe (which again reflects the attitudes of Hollywood, this time re: the Iraq & Afghanistan wars).
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posted
Dan: Have you seen Generation Kill? (the HBO series) It neither glorifies the war, nor makes the Marines involved look monstrous. (Several of them played themselves in the series) It's also the most accurate movie/mini-series about war I've ever seen. (though the book is better if you want an explanation of the strategy behind the seeming chaos)
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posted
Check out this interview with the actual Marines depicted in the series, if you want an idea how it's been received.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Transformers was very pro-US military.
Of course the acting is terrible, they don't have actual trained actors but actual Seals. But I can forgive that for realism, live rounds, accurate tactics, generally a-politcal plot etc.
Though there's good reason to be critical, the war in Iraq has done much to discredit US foreign policy; it's a terrible war of aggression for terrible reasons.
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Of course the acting is terrible, they don't have actual trained actors but actual Seals. But I can forgive that for realism, live rounds, accurate tactics, generally a-politcal plot etc.
I went into it feeling that same that you do now, but I was still shocked at how bored I was. That's probably because I didn't expect the actual script to suck as badly as it did. Bad acting is one thing, but bad acting coupled with a bad script is even worse.
His breakdown of the plot is pretty spot on, too. It's extremely convoluted and I could barely follow the details, but that was probably because I had already mentally checked out at that point. I agree with pretty much everything he said about it, and he actually brought up some things I didn't know, such as how this film was originally meant to be a documentary, which makes a lot more sense, especially given how 2 dimensional the script is. You really get the feeling that it would be better if nobody talked.
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posted
Hm. I can't think of many modern war movies set in Afghanistan or Iraq in which soldiers are not generally depicted as well-meaning.
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posted
That's probably due to the US military having script control that is tight enough in some cases to make it into the realm of propaganda.
quote: It's not difficult to see what both sides get out of it. The use of official hardware gives a movie such as Revenge of the Fallen a much-needed veneer of credibility: without the military, it's just a film about robots fighting. And it saved the film-makers millions of dollars in props, locations and special effects. Meanwhile, the military gets to show off its latest equipment to millions of people, and depict its personnel in the best possible light. "Yes, we have a good relationship," says Philip Strub, director of entertainment media at the US department of defence, who has worked with Bay since ... In theory, any US film-maker can make use of the military's hardware, personnel and property. It all belongs to the taxpayer, after all. As well as Strub's office in the Pentagon, each of the US's armed forces has its own public affairs department in LA to work with film-makers. ... However, you get all this on the military's terms. The script must be submitted for approval, a military consultant will be on hand during the shoot, and the finished product has to be screened for Pentagon chiefs before its release. And if the military doesn't like the way it is portrayed in the script, it won't help you until you make the changes it recommends.
I have to say I enjoyed the film as a whole, though it was nearly ruined by the "letter" framing device and by the overblown funeral at the end. It's a solid action movie, and should've stayed as such. Tacking on unnecessary and unwanted melodrama and patriotism at the end just makes the whole thing cheesy and left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards.
I had no problem with the acting. I went in knowing that the main characters were played by SEALs, not actors, so I wasn't expecting anything special and wasn't disappointed. I felt like they did an adequate job and nothing seemed corny or overacted, except (again) for the letter/funeral thing.
The movie itself was both surprisingly realistic and, in a few parts, hilariously inaccurate. Looking back, though, I think some of those parts may have been intentionally botched for OPSec reasons. They're still a little jarring, though. (I'm not sure how noticeable they would be to someone not in the military, so I'm waiting to see if anyone else noticed them)
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Hm. I can't think of many modern war movies set in Afghanistan or Iraq in which soldiers are not generally depicted as well-meaning.
The wording of this sentence is really precise!
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I asked my friend what he thought after he saw it, and he pretty much said the same thing you did. He isn't in the military, though he knows a lot about it. However, because of his diabetes he was never able to join. But it could have been his fanboyism, since he found the battle scenes to be the best part, and the awful script and acting didn't deter him from enjoying it. Then again, he is really easily pleased with movies and he has a permanent free pass to all AMC theaters so he didn't have to pay (which, when it's free, usually makes it better).
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