Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2002)

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, and I was disappointed. The movie is not really bad, but it's not that good either. It was supposed to be about the code and how it helped us win the war in the pacific. It's really about Nick Cage's battle scars and how Private Yanzee, one of the code talkers, tries to win his approval. John Woo it seems, is more concerned with pyrotechnics than substance which after a while gets very repetitive. The code talkers during WWII were extremely valuable because the Marines could use them to plan strategy, troop movements, and ambushes before, during, and after the battle with out giving this important information to the Japanese. The movie basically depicts the code talkers giving coordinates to mostly fixed gun placements for Navy bombardments. You do not need a code for this. So the Japanese know 1 minute ahead of time their fixed place guns will be destroyed. So what. The movie never really shows why they were so important, so valuable. The movie spent too much time on Nick Cage and his battlefield ghosts. The movie should have focused more indepth on Yahzee and Whitehorse. Why they were fighting (they were volunteers) and what great contributions the Navaho gave. I thought the movie would have excellent combat, especially with this director, but it is not as good as Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. Nick Cage's character belongs in a Chuck Norris movie where he never misses, turns at the last minute to shoot the man hidden in the bushes and is basically indestructable. You never really got the sense these people are really "going through hell". Just a bunch of actors pretending to go through hell. Even some of the combat staging is silly. Especially when Yahzee and Enders appear magically behind enemy lines to capture a radio and call in gun fire. Way to much like Rambo and not believeable. The ending has similar cheese. If you can wait, rent the DVD when it comes out, which should not take to long. It is worth at least that.