Hollywood strikes again

Rating: 2/10 (6 November 2014)

First, the good news: Brat Pitt plays Achilles again! Callous, cynical, merciless, he piles the corpses of slain enemies a mile high around him. Everyone who likes old John Wayne movies, in which the heroes slaughter faceless masses of victims without work up a sweat, will love this one.
Most interesting is the fact, that obviously most (even 'professional') critics fell for the completely artificial psychological aspect. The heroes are unhappy with what they see? Bad luck, man, you went there by own choice. What did you think war would be like? The characters in the movie doesn't depict something like men following a comprehensible downfall due to what they witness or do. They're plain sociopathic lunatics! There's been millions of men in that war, and though only a small fraction has really been in the midst of fighting, postwar society would have broken with legions of burnt-out killers, ripe for padded cells, flooding back. No, folks, think again: this movie isn't about psychological trauma and gruesome but necessary hebetude. It's most voyeuristic carnage with embedded paltry excuse. The disability of most authors to tell enthralling stories lead more and more to the simple idea to just add more blood and gore and atrocity and cover it with flimsy homemade psychology.
To enhance the bulls**t even more, the director fantasized a completely hilarious made-up scenario: the lonesome, heroic tank crew, standing strong amidst a sea of raging enemy troops - in 1945. Too bad, though, that in that phase of the war the western allies outnumbered the Germans multiple times, having total air superiority and more tanks on the western front than the Germans had built during the whole war. Forcibly generate old fashioned underdog heroism without any logic isn't just bad storytelling, but a slap in the face of any thinking audience. So the glorious final battle degenerates as expected to utter ridiculousness. Our larger-than-life heroes slaughter masses of enemy soldiers who seem unable to hit a barn from the inside and being void of any experience or even basic reflexes. By my opinion, this always is the worst insult to all real WW2 vets: when the enemy soldiers were that completely inapt, how did so many of you die? So far, directors have proved completely unable to think war as not glorious, not heroic and not a great adventure in which people die just so their friends have a reason to take revenge. David Ayer failed likewise.
I gave two stars for good effects and for using real tanks instead of ugly dummies.