Educational and exciting, but fails

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2007)

This movie reminded me of the usual video game that involves spraying the enemy base with bullets on the run, getting shot, and then restarting to do the same. It was pretty enjoyable and rewatchable. Minus the fact that it was completely predictable, this is nothing more than a popcorn flick to hammer your boredom. I'm completely fine with that, because it was very entertaining. Woo never lets us down in that aspect. It just fails, and very badly I might add, to get its point across. Nobody really cares about the characters in this movie. It's impossible to. Joe Enders was a stock character, more or less, or at least morphed into one when he went back to war. The entire squadron was very stereotypical: the bigot, the target of the hate who saves the bigot's bacon, the guy who thinks about his family too much, the oddball (Greek guy), and the main character's companion who is the only one he really bonds well with (Slater). Other than that, I would like to point out a few comical parts in this movie that completely ruin its dramatic effect. First and foremost, every explosion in the movie looks like a napalm bomb went off, even the grenades. The Japanese characters were bumbling morons who had no IQ or weapons capability. The marines used no tactics, and just charged or sprayed. In an alternate ending, Walker, Texas Ranger could have walked out and massacred all of the enemies on the island. Would it have really mattered with this movie?