Greatest Effects Ever...but still might be worth skipping entirely...here's why

Rating: 5/10 (4 July 2007)

The movie was visually stunning, and I was entranced, but I gave it a 5. Here's why; you can decide (minor spoilers):
1. The Iraq war vets/U.S. Army soldier massacre (set in Qatar with Iraqi vets on their way home) was over the top and inappropriate. A massacre of U.S. soldiers after they've emotionally talked about how much they can't wait to get home to their wives, and children, and mothers, followed by a similar massacre of innocent Qatari civilians, including women and children,with lots of bombs, gunfire, smoke, and (presumed) killing. (A close second on this tip is the skyscraper we see full of busy, working, socializing people getting destroyed.)
No blood doesn't mean U.S.service members on the ground, while mortars and gunfire go off around them, begging "no, no" before we see and hear his violent death, or office furniture and parts of the building slamming into the street below from the skyscraper we SAW all the people (real life actors) in, doesn't evoke memories that don't need to be evoked. Poor taste and just an excuse to be "real" while blowing more stuff up.
3. The sex, farting, and taking a leak jokes seemed like they were from another movie altogether. It was bizarre. I was thinking "Steven Spielberg produced this?" his stock has dropped with me. I used to be if he or George Lucas were attached to something, it might be a good or bad movie, but it would be appropriate for everyone in your family from the elementary school kids to the grandparents. To the Yahoo! Movies reviewer who said his kid learned about self-pleauring, including the actual word for it, from this film, I feel your pain. I, like another reviewer, don't slam this kind of film--it just didn't belong in the big family blockbuster of the Summer. When a government agent leers at a 16 year-old girl from a foot away and slithers "Criminals are HOT," while looking her up and down. You just sort of wonder, what the heck?
3. The movie is really disturbing on minorities, of which there are few (and nearly all used for comic relief) and while not overtly racist, uses stereotypes in such a way that it hurts things more than the cheap laugh is worth. The only Hispanic character of substance is ridiculed and shouted at to speak English, and bores his Army team with stories about his mother and her cooking, ALL the black characters are either fat or disrespectfully profanity spewing, or both, and, with the exception of one, are either rude, dishonest, or full of attitude, to put it nicely. Even the one who rises to secondary hero status is a big, fat (literally) stereotype, who gets to pick up another one...virgin computer nerd...in addition to his D.C. "urban" identity. While the Indian (country, not native American) joke is a set-up we can all identify with, when taken with the others, things start to get uncomfortable. Did I mention there's only one person of color among all of the main and secondary heroic characters, all the others provide crude comic relief (mostly by being fat or profane). Other stuff is more subtle, (presumably) Jewish family is rich and conspicuously consume, black characters live with their grandmother, not their parents, in an apartment, Hispanic character chooses to speak Spanish over English even with people who don't speak Spanish, etc.
For this, I give it a "5" because it should have been a better movie. It should have been the big movie everyone goes to see with their kids and grandkids and instead it has all this other stuff to temper the awesomeness of the visuals and ultimately make the movie not great, but disappointing.