A horrific and emotional journey through every war movie cliché

Rating: 4/10 (17 October 2014)

I had high hopes that Fury might end the dry spell of good WWII movies. I could have forgiven the checklist of war movie clichés Fury manages to work in had it not been for a laughable final battle more akin to something from The Expendables than a serious war movie. The final battle consists of scenes where a battalion of seasoned SS soldiers run back and forth through our heroes' machine gun fire, only stopping when it is time for a forced emotional exchange inside the tank. While the director chose to have every other enemy brandish an anti-tank weapon in the ominous lead-in to the final battle, for some reason only three of them are fired, two which miss at unrealistically close range. The ridiculousness of it all turned me into that obnoxious movie goer that laughs out loud during what should be a serious and emotional scene.
On the positive side it does manage the singular achievement of most war movie clichés fit into two hours:
Kill a German officer on horseback - check
Christian singing hymns - check
Mexican crew member made fun of for speaking Spanish - check
Hardened leader with a unknown pre-war history who has a private emotional breakdown - check
Young replacement who struggles to fit in with seasoned veterans but wins them over in the end - check
Soldier falls in love with local girl only to watch her die - check
A final mission with impossible odds - check
Moment of doubt when facing certain death but where everyone decides to stick together in the face of certain death - check
Retarded enemy is almost defeated only to remember how to do war, and only after our team has completed their emotional bonding and character development - check
One member escapes death against all odds-check
Enemy soldier shows mercy by not revealing hiding soldier - check
....and many many many more.