Insulting

Rating: 1/10 (25 May 2001)

It seems to me that Bruchheimer must have said something like this to himself: "People who see movies today are stupid, so just stick some stuff that worked in other movies in there. Who cares if it fits together. Who cares if the story is developed. Who cares if it's been seen a hundred times before. Who cares if we have to ram an emotion down the audience throat. The audience is stupid, and they won't catch on." I'm too frustrated to even write a review here! Rather than spend an hour or so collecting my thoughts on the film's empty love story (it's as if it was written with a "Movie Love Story Ad-Lib" with the appropriate names filled in the blanks), it's absolutely comical patriotism (I was waiting for someone to scream "I just baked an apple pie! I have to save the apple pie!!"), its unsympathetic heroes (that you all but forget about once stuff finally starts blowing up), the plot's lack of structure (it can't even figure out how to finally end), and the fact that what we actually see is nothing more that a disjointed jumble of scenes, lines, and even specific shots stolen from war and disaster films before it, I'm just going to attempt to convey the one emotion this film succeeded in making me feel--insulted! I don't know if I have ever seen a cheesier, more heavy handed film--at least not one that pretends to be some sort of epic. Why do we, as a film audience, have to tolerate this annual Bruchheimer summer garbage?