the movie falls way short of its raving reviews

Rating: 5/10 (27 November 2009)

It had been quite a while since I last encountered a movie with such a great discrepancy between the critics' reviews and my own. I saw this movie last night at the theatre, and I still cannot believe the generosity of some of the grades/reviews this movie's received.
The best way to put it, simply, is that this is just another war movie. It falls flat, it bores, it is about 25 minutes too long, and, to top it off, it is completely unrealistic. (yes, movies in general are fiction, but this one being a war movie, and being so wildly unrealistic, it very much spoils what is supposed to be the effect of the film). It provides next to nothing new that you haven't already seen in other war movies. The scene juxtaposition (not necessarily the editing in general) feels extremely unnatural, even annoying to an aficionado. And, unlike good war movies, it completely fails to move you.
And it is not that I don't like war movies. In fact, I only recently watched Flags Of Our Fathers, as well as Letters From Iwo Jima, and both are excellent war movies (though of very different kind). Not to mention the half-dozen or so war classics that I love.
Actually, if you want to watch an effective version of The Hurt Lucker, watch Metallica's The Day That Never Comes music video - and you'll save about 2 hours and 15 minutes of your time. I'm only half-kidding about the music video.