Overacted eyecandy without any content

Rating: 4/10 (7 April 2015)

Mr. Pitt plays the 3-year war veteran in command of a Sherman tank crew while fighting in the final push into somewhere in Germany. They lost their forward machine gunner in action so they need a replacement, and they are given a typist with no combat experience, who is quickly put into the grinder of the final weeks of the war.
For starters the movie has a very large cast of extras, which gives a solid initial impression of the fighting on the front of a war. Visually, the movie is also very pretty, well shot, good cinematography. The movie has plenty of gruesome deaths which will appeal to the gore crowd.
From there on, its downhill. The acting is not bad, but it is too much; the limited span of the script simply does not bear it. The story told by the script is too thin, like skin stretched over a skeleton with no flash on it.
Most of the scenes in the movie are not 'fleshed out'... they are superficial and barely adds to the flow of the movie. There is no real character development. The change to the movie forward gunner seem artificial and transparent. A lot of the human expression near the end is expletives.
All war movies have both inaccuracies and silliness that occurs throughout the action, but this movie's load of these is not just stretching credibility: It is outright ridiculous! Limited artillery shelling in a village that all seemingly hit right in the town square, numerous shells that manage to glance off tank armour where the tank armour only has a ~1" indentation, and the final whopper of "one tank crew holding off and slaughtering most of an entire Regiment"? Did they really pull off the "Heroic Last Stand To The Death" trope? Yep, they sure did. I feel like this is where the Storm Troopers come in, because they can't hit s___, either! After all those numerous glowing machinegun and cannon shots (which funnily enough are strictly one colour for the Americans and another for the Germans), I'm expecting Darth German to step in at the end, telling Brad Skywalker that he is his long-lost father, the two of them fighting on different sides of the same war.
Oh yeah, the ending was weak - saw it coming a mile away.
WW2 aficionados will shake their heads and pop Kelly's Heroes (for humor) or The Longest Day (for at least somewhat credible portrayal of a notable war action) on instead.
Verdict: Poor. This is Red Tails on the ground. High-budget, lots of eye candy, but poor plot/script, and just silly.
Recommandation: Typical popcorn movie. Worth watching (cinema or rental ONLY) but not worth buying nor remembering.