Very Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (22 March 2007)

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, as the trailer was awesome and the first couple of pages of reviews on IMDb were all very positive. I had read some reviews complaining about the historical accuracy of the film (or lack thereof) and the supposed racism and dodgy political messages in the movie and I thought "Lighten up, it's a silly cartoonish bit of fun, best not to take it too seriously". Then I went and saw it... I have seen many a film in my time, but I have to say that this is the most morally offensive film I have ever seen. And it says something about how morally offensive it is that its offensiveness manages to transcend its cartoonish nature and offend someone as unoffendable as me. What's wrong with it? How long have you got? It's racist, homophobic, it glorifies violence more than any other film I've ever seen, and it even manages to deliver a few not-so-subtle stabs at disabled and deformed folk. It's also a blatant but terribly misleading defence of both current American foreign policy and of Nazi politics. And I don't think that's reading too much into it either; these messages come across pretty strongly in the movie. And nor does this film begin to make up for its moral failings with a storyline or decent characterisation. It is totally 2-dimensional and sometimes extremely boring. On the plus side, it does have four stars worth of great art direction, but don't let that lure you into seeing it. You can get all the goodness you need from the trailer, but without the indigestible 90 mins of war propaganda that make up the full-length film.