Unnecessary and overrated

Rating: 6/10 (24 February 2015)

With a 7,7-rating at the time of writing this, 'Fury' is rated exactly the same as David Ayer's 2012 film 'End Of Watch', which is misleading, quality-wise. Where 'End of Watch' was intense, original, cool and exciting and simply one of the best cop-films in a long while, 'Fury' is quite conventional, shallow, unhistorical and rather dull. If one was hoping for a groundbreaking war movie (I know I was), this is not it.
We are treated to the education of a young soldier, reluctant to participate in the inevitable butchery (which incidentally is displayed in images more akin to films like 'Rambo' (2008) or Ayer's more recent 'Sabotage' than 'Saving Private Ryan'), but it turns out he just needs his arm twisted properly by strict but fair father figure "Wardaddy" (so much for subtlety) in order to accept the facts of life: war is beastly and you have to do what you have to do to survive, son. Good thing the crew have God on their side and know their bible verses. Soon the rookie, too, will say (and you may doubt your ears, because it is so unmotivated from a character point of view): "Best job I ever had!" The tank fights do look impressive, I suppose, although I cannot judge on plausibility and historical accuracy. It has been pointed out in the Message Boards that the excessive use of tracer bullets, while being a cool contemporary effect is probably far exaggerated. That seems to be a negligible objection, but that effect (CGI of course) is so overused that it MAKES the look of the film much in the same way that CGI blood spatters in Slo-mo MADE the look of '300'. It is an eye catcher, but it effectively kills the viewer's immersion into a WWII-era feeling.
All in all the whole film is quite irrelevant and will soon be forgotten.