Peace with War?..... Not Happening

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2009)

Hearing post previews of this film was great before going into it with great expectations. I first heard an actual good review of this movie from the Deans List in which I had a few of the similar reviews on it. But when i heard that the Deans List gave this movie an "A", I knew I had to see it when it first came out. What I really adored about this movie was that it provided a cast full of known and unknown actors. A cast in which consisted of Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation), Zoe Saldana (Star Trek), Sigourney Weaver (Alien/Aliens), Stephen Lang (The Men Who Stare At Goats), Michelle Rodriguez (Resident Evil), Joel Moore (Grandma's Boy), and Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan), each one of these cast members brought a little something different to the table, each one had great talent for the characters they portrayed. As an example like Stephen Lang did an excellent job as a "Gun Ho", all war soldier that has had his take in action, just look at the scars on his body. One can also look at Sam Worthington, who first went into the war with a one sided mentality, soon learning about the race he was there to destroy, he did a brilliant job and I hope he does great in the films to come, consider Clash of the Titans, cannot wait for that. Unfortunately, some of the cast could have used a little work, Giovanni Ribisi has done a great job in films such as Saving Private Ryan, but in this he showed many of the same character traits as he did in Gone in 60 Seconds, in which was a mediocre of a movie, in my opinion he could have done a little more with the character he was playing. Another part of the cast would have to be the known actress, Michelle Rodriguez, in which showed some of the same aspects as Giovanni Ribisi showed. She shows the same character similarities in most of the movies she acts in. Consider SWAT, Fast and Furious, and Resident Evil, in which she shows her "Badass", Do Not mess with me, mentality which is great for some scenes but after a while just gets a little repetitive.
The filming in this movie was outstanding, the visual effects were simply amazing. Evening viewing this film in 3D was awesome. One viewing this movie can see every little detail in a scene. In one of the scenes, a fire is set in the forest, after all the smoke is cleared and the battle is over, you can see every little piece of ash falling from the sky. There was actually a point in the movie where I took my hand and ran it down my face to remove ashes from my face. The battle scenes in the movie were EPIC, all round amazing. Even when there would be a love scene or a scene in which there is valuable needed to be obtained, you are simply glued to your seat. In most movies that are longer that two hours long, one would start to lose interest in the movie. In this movie, I could not keep my eyes off of the screen, for 3 hours, I did not look away. From the stunning visual effects to the outstanding cast and crew, James Cameron put an all round great movie on the theater screen, and I am not surprised this film has already made it to the Top 250 list.