War films that should have been good but sucked...

Lil'Jugs thread inspired me to start this one.

What are some war films that you think had tons of potential but ended up disappointing you?

My top 3,

1. "Windtalkers" - Nicholas Cage. 'Nuff said.

2. "Flyboys" - It's like the scriptwriters wanted to set a new world record for how many cliches they could use in 2 hours.

3. "Red Tails" - George Lucas. "Nuff said.

Pearl Harbor.

Thin Red Line.

How do you make a boring war movie?

Pearl Harbor wins my vote. That is not to say others like thin red line do not deserve this honer. But Pearl harbor had an big arse budget and flew so far off the rails from history and reality it was a true WTF.

'Red Baron'. As it was domestically produced and not Hollywood like. From the online preamble which seemed to indicate much research and the fact that all Hun kites were not Red Tripes I had high expectations of true representation of the character of the man and of the combat and conditions of the time; how wrong I was.

Most.

I don't want to waste 90...180 minutes of my life for the sole message "War is hell" or "These people had to endure a lot of hardship". IMO a good war movie must be historically reasonably accurate (even if it is in a fictional setting), it shouldn't alter tactics of the time to fit the narrative, it should deliver context (why was the battle fought to begin with, why did its outcome matter), and ideally it would also keep the audience oriented about what's going on.

Most war movies fail in several of these categories.

Yeah, my vote would also have to be Pearl Harbor. What a pile of cack.

Gods and Generals.

Battle of the Bulge

I'm interested to know in what areas do you think this film failed. I think G&G was very good across the board IMHO.

Enemy at the Gates

War is hell...except that you can take a break every so often and have an old grandmother home-cook a meal for you and your friends...and have wild monkey sex with your girlfriend from your co-ed army.

Historical accuracy in a dramatic movie does not concern me all that much, that is what documentaries are for. Basicaly, as long as it is accurate enough not to break the third wall -- planes flying out out the distant past or far future, actors wearing out of period styles etc., I can enjoy the story even if it does not track to our understanding of events. Movies are storytelling.

Accuracy as far as character studies, motivations, and unfolding events, are always suspect, because history is written by the victors.

Stripes.

Fury

American Sniper.

Starship Troopers

I believe, but I can be wrong, that this movie is not to be taken to the first degree...

now what about the war movies with Audy Murphy ? even with him playing his self, they managed to do everything rubbish...

Sniper - Tom Berenger. Could have been so good.

Act of Valor.
Sorry dudes- those guys deserve more respect than that.

These,



and this:



I had high expectations for Fury, but my God, what a steaming pile of turd that movie turned out to be! Possibly only eclipsed by the monumental turd tower and disgrace to a brave group of pilots that was Red Tails. I still want my two hours back after having watched that.

Now, off to watch Band of Brothers and Generation Kill.

Oh. I know... I was just trying to be cheaky, but upon further reflection it wasn't that bad for what it was. military satire.. which they lost the grasp of by st4, actually st2, but by st4 I couldn't even watch 8 minutes of it.

Pearl Harbor
Red Tails
Both of which COULD have been great, but the story and directing were terrible. The history and talent were there.
Act of Valor...unwatchable, but I respect the attempt.
Can't say Fury completely sucked, but it comes mighty close and definitely disappointed.

I enjoyed Flyboys and Red Baron.

I won't say it sucked either. My problem is there was not one character I liked. Each one had their own malfunction where I didn't like any of them. They did a good job at playing the #%&*$#, ect. Where even Hoyt gets his head blown off.

How can anyone say the Tiger scene isn't realistic. That's how every one of my wt battles with a tiger go.

Thin Red Line. because of this movie I will NEVER watch another movie with Terrence Malick as the director



I actually enjoyed Flyboys and Red Tails, neither are good as say.. Memphis Belle, Flight of the Intruder, Battle of Britain or Dark Blue World but I enjoy them none the less.

Red Baron

Two more I'd like to add,


1. U-571 - The horror, the horror. This could have been good had the script not been written for 15 year olds.


2. The Patriot - See above.

I saw it in the theater when it first came out. I thought it was slow moving and seemed to plod on without anything compelling.

I'm sorry to say when the lights came up I was ready to leave ASAP.

Thin Red Line.

What a pretentious, boring steaming pile of crap.

And that is the most exciting thing about it.

Thin Red Line is a great movie - this is a matter of fact, not one of opinion.

Please differentiate between movies that genuinely suck - Flyboys, U-571 plus many, many more - and ones that were not what you expected.

I actually liked The Thin Red Line

I watched A Bridge Too Far for the first time in many years a while back and was pretty much bored by it, much preferred reading the book to the movie.


Cross of Iron..after three failed attempts at watching it all the way through i finally gave up on it


Windtalkers.


edit- I won't worry about ever seeing Red Tails lol, the clips that came out were enough for me.

What I love about "Cross of Iron" is the nihilistic view it has on humanity and its surrealism. It's an underrated film IMHO.

Uh...no.

That statement is 100% incorrect. A movie having a large budget is a matter of fact. A movie having an all-star cast is a matter of fact. A movie using actual locations and/or equipment is a matter of fact. A movie having actual veterans of the battle depicted as consultants is a matter of fact. A movie making a lot of money or failing at the box office is a matter of fact.

A movie being great is by definition a matter of opinion. A script being good or bad is a matter of opinion. A director being good or pretentious or lousy is a matter of opinion. A cast being perfect or wrong is a matter of opinion.



The Jedi Master

I thought the Thin Red Line was awful.

Thin Red Line - as has been already mentioned here - suffered greatly from false expectations. That being said, even though I "get" the film, I still find it excruciatingly boring. Also IMO a little condescending towards the audience: as in "preachy" - which all too often comes with the "anti-war-movie" territory. Maybe that's inevitable concerning the topic.

Although I believe Kubrick managed to pull it off with Full Metal Jacket, which IMO is the least preachy movies within that genre.

U-571
Pearl Harbour

Travesties both

+1 That scene at the end with Private Joker and the decision he had to make summed it up quite well.

All of my votes have been mentioned already, although I thought "Flyboys" was also better than it could have been in a couple of ways. I also liked "Cross of Iron" but that may be because I've only ever seen it when it first came out and it did a better job of covering the important aspects of the book than many adaptations do. It may not have held up well over time. I will say that I didn't particularly care for the interspersing of the children singing.

I'd like to make a few comments on other picks:

@komemiute & Raw Kryptonite
I liked Act of Valor. The actors weren't great actors, but that's because they weren't actors. I was on Combat Control and Tactical Air Control Teams (now called JTAC, I believe) from 1973-1980 and I thought it portrayed the reality of special forces as nearly as a movie can. I especially loved the interrogation of Crisco...sorry, Christo. You know that guy's done that before. There were cliches, but remember that many cliches become that because they're true and repeated so often.

@Raw Kryptonite & Falstar
I will say that Fury sucked. The other kind of cliche is the kind that happened in real life once or twice (the cowboy gunfight-only two that came anywhere close were Hicock/Tutt in Springfield, MO and the OK Corral, though the latter has only been faithfully portrayed on film once, in "Tombstone"...the famous air duel between Guynemer and Udet probably became the foundation for the whole "chivalry among WWI pilots" myth) if ever, but it sounds so good that it becomes standard in movies and books. Fury was that kind, beginning to end.

@PanzerMeyer
"U-571" had one monumentally great moment that salvaged the whole movie, IMO: Bill Paxton dies. I know, he died in "Tombstone" years earlier, but that was just icing on the cake of an already terrific move. With "U-571" it was like Steven Seagal biting the big one in "Executive Decision".

@Jedi Master
You hit the nail on the head (OMG, another cliche), sir. All of the above...including the drivel that I've just posted...are opinions and not facts. The really fun thing about these kinds of threads is seeing all of the different opinions and how one person will think X movie was the best thing ever put on film while someone else thinks it was the biggest atrocity foisted on the movie-watching public. That said, please don't take any of my opinions personally, anyone.

I will say that people's clear understanding of the difference between fact and opinion has gotten more and more blurred in the 21st century, and it has led to a lot of unpleasantness.

Understanding what is an opinion is key. Understanding that just because your conclusion is based on facts does not make your conclusion a fact, or correct, is important as well.

Any informed opinion is valid (uninformed aka talking-out-your-ass is invalid because it's unsupported by anything), and we should all be tolerant of differing opinions, as hard as it can be at times.



The Jedi Master

When you start combining historical figures into a single character, you're heading in the wrong direction...

That's true, Vertigo, BUT:

Many "based on a true story" films are just that...several peoples' experiences blended into one character. This is done for various reasons: It's easier for the audience to connect with one person than 20 people in 20 different units and keeping the cast smaller and more manageable being the top two.

That's what blew me away about "Band of Brothers". I thought that's what I was watching...a story that combined the experiences of 100 soldiers in the 101st (and maybe the 82nd and others, as well). Then, at the end of the last episode, when they showed the names of the veterans who had been giving their own remenisceces at the beginning of each episode, and you saw that they were the actual people you'd been watching being portrayed.....I can only repeat, it completely blew me away.

+1.
A load of crap.

True

I'd typed a much longer and considered defence of TRL, but it didn't post and I got narky and put down the gist instead.
On a phone, and not going into a definition of art vs a product here, but my opinion is that more people should at least acknowledge the difference when slagging off something.

Pearl Harbour

U-571

Both abysmal.

+1

I've never watched TRL and considering how divided opinions are on it, I feel I'm better off not bothering. I don't need to watch another film that I know I have a good chance of not liking!



The Jedi Master

Knowing your tastes in film I can say with 99% certainty that you would not like TRL.

Watching Windtalkers.

Cage never runs out of ammo on his 30 round clip for his Thompson and every time he fires it, he kills an entire platoon of Japanese troops with it.

Is Adam Beach the only American Indian actor in Hollywood?

Adam Beach is canadian (as is Graham Green).

Wes Studi. You may have seen him in films like Heat, Last of the Mohicans and A million ways to die in the West.

He's an excellent actor.


Oh and PV1 is correct.

Anything after Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down...

Pearl Harbor was the only disappointment. What should've been a War movie was turned into a chick flick. Ridiculous.


The best film ever on the bombing of Pearl Harbor is still "Tora, Tora, Tora!" Excellent movie, even by today's standards.

Tora cubed is still the only "war movie" as I consider it that I own on DVD. Well, I have FMJ of Vietnam, but I don't think of it in the same way for whatever reason. Must be the Kubrickianness of it.



The Jedi Master

FMJ is basically Die Hard levels of goofy set in Vietnam, Tora³ is a little more accurate

Tora, Tora, Tora was very much a documentary-style film about a "big picture" event while FMJ was a psychological study of war and its effect on different soldiers.

It was also a source of quotes for decades to come.



The Jedi Master

I like this movie but it seems it received bad reviews from both critics and audiences especially on IMDB.

I don't understand why people think there is something wrong with it.



I think some people are making fun of it because it's a French movie.

Forces Spéciales aka Special Forces (2011)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1656192/

Dark blue World has basically the same plot as Poo Harbour, but it managed to be a fine film. Along with u-571 vs Das Boot, I consider theses examples of how Hollywood can't do a war film right.

I thought We Were Soldiers was awful crap, and then I watched Fury. Both made me grumpy about Hollywood war films.

I actually like Thin Red Line...

Pearl Harbor, Flyboys, Act of Valor, Fury. All have been said, and I agree with all of them.

Red Tails was always going to be doomed, just because of the political agenda that always gets pushed with the Tuskegee Airmen.

I gotta say, one under rated war movies is Sucker Punch. Starts with WWI and transitions to WWII with a taste of LOTRs....Who can forget the excellent Huey scene?