Boring and silly War movie...

Rating: 5/10 (25 October 2002)

John Woo is an action - kung fu director and that shows thru the film. American GIs roll on the floor before throwing grenades into enemy trenches 30 meters away. No back flips were present thankfully thou. After so many well made and serious war movies this is a wierd thing to watch.
Regular run of the mill movie goers might actually have some fun from the sentimental story and some of the silliest war fighting scenes ever. More hardcore war movie fans and intelligent viewers shouldnt get even close to this film. I think fighting in the pacific rarely involved kicking and daggers as much as this film portrays.
The Navajo part of the movie is well filmed and portrayed. That much the director got right. Some scenes and views are quite an eye catcher even if they have nothing to do with the real war. The two indian actors were in my opinion quite likeable and added to the film overall.
Cage's character thou was the stereotypical gung-ho marine with no fear of death and a squadron of guardian angels to take those bullets for him. It gets close to being silly how suicidal he is... and in the end he is doing all this gung-ho stuff with a defective sense of balance due to an older war wound ! End result is a boring and flat character and a boring and flat movie.
Overall 5 / 10 Good photography and bad action.