Total Nonsense

Rating: 2/10 (21 August 2010)

Apparently the United States Army really did try to do some of the things depicted here. For some reason that doesn't surprise me. Apparently they really did try to get soldiers to kill goats with their minds, walk through walls, etc. (And apparently they did at one point torture captured Iraqis by making them watch videos of Barney the Dinosaur over and over - that I can understand!) That much of the story is true. A serious look at some of those efforts might have actually been worthwhile - and given how ridiculous the stuff is, might actually have been funny (much funnier than this, which at times managed to be at best slightly funny) even if it was treating the subject matter seriously. This was not serious. This movie takes those experiments as the jumping off point for a ridiculous story that put me to sleep at one point and never managed to pull me back in. The movie is shown largely from the perspective of a reporter (Ewen McGregor) who heads to Iraq to prove how tough he is I guess and somehow ends up connecting with this guy Lyn (George Clooney) - who was at one time one of the "psychic soldiers" of the experiment. OK. I'm not much of a George Clooney fan. Strike 1 on the movie. The story was impossible to follow - largely incoherent at times. Strike 2. The characters were unbelievable to the point of being nonsensical. Strike 3. I could go on with the problems, but - you know - 3 strikes and you're out!