(Review originally written at 18 November 2007)
A war movie done John Woo-style sounded like such a good idea on paper. The slow-motion action sequences and other typical Woo-ism elements are often even more laughable than beautiful or realistic. Same goes for the deeper and sentimental meanings of the movie.
It's obvious John Woo wanted to make a "Saving Private Ryan" realistic like war movie but the movie gets stuck somewhere between Hollywood action/war entertainment and a serious war movie.
The battle sequences look too fabricated and planned out, which is of course a killer for the movie its realism. Sure the battle sequences all look fine and it obvious cost some serious money to make this movie.
Between all of the battles and action within the movie, there are lots of slow moments. Guess it tries to be deep or something, also about the Navajo-culture, in those moments but it instead feels pointless and often like a drag. Same goes for most of the sentiments within the movie. It's also the reason why the movie is quite long.
The movie is an underwritten one that for a genre movie is too formulaic. It's mostly a predictable movie that offers very few surprises or original moments. A shame, since the concept of the movie is definitely an original one. The movie also doesn't bother to tell where and why they are fighting. What are all these battles? Why are they being fought? And yes, of course the movie also finds room to put in a love-story. All of the character also remain pretty shallow one's, no matter how far they dig into their past.
Nicolas Cage just wasn't made for these sort of movies. The movie is filled with some other well known names in it and most of them do a good job. It's not like the acting is one of the weakest elements of the movie but that still doesn't mean that everyone was correctly cast.
It's definitely a watchable movie but its shortcomings just prevent this movie from being a great or really memorable one.
6/10
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