Violence does not make a movie

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2002)

I had high expectations for this movie, especially since it has the Ridley Scott name on it. In short, it just turned out to be a very violent movie without any good story. Don't get me wrong, I like action and war movies a lot. Sure, it beats the world record for the number of lost limbs and balls shot in the head (there's barely 2 minutes without any shooting), but it's so patriotic and stupid at the same time. Where can you see a guy cut in 2 pieces with bowels all on the ground say something like "tell my wife and children I'm well" the same way you'd tell someone how's the weather. It also gets so repetitive it all comes down to how many bad Africans die. The biggest problem is that it does not even try to explain the problem and how it came to this. Oh sure there's a little introduction but who cares. I did not want a Pearl Harbor in Somalia. With all this said, the action scenes are still very well done, even if the characters are all the same and you don't care about any of them. Is our society so sick this kind of movie gets praised?