Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

Basically a very well-rendered, if not particularly imaginative, video game cut-scene, this actioner with sci-fi overtones concerns the military response to a hostile extra-terrestrial invasion, specifically on the coast of Los Angeles. While I disagree with Roger Ebert's half-a-star(!) review, I think he gave the movie too much credit by writing it a full-page review. This is not a full-page review type movie, because I doubt the execs ever gave a full page of notes during the whole show. This is a thin, thin, thin, thin movie, with terribly cliched dialogue, characters, and situations that even the most mildly educated cinephile will see coming a mile away ("Bye, Hoyt!"). The action is, until the end, pretty terrific, but it becomes obvious that the budget constrictions did not allow for ID4 or War of the World style carnage; even so, the more intimate battle scenes are nail-bitingly intense and well-choreographed. However, it does not fully redeem the grade-school scripting, and the movie is left to remain the cinematic equivalent of playing Gears of War for 2 hours (while being forced to watch the godawful dramatic cut-scenes, of course).

Slightly Recommended for action junkies, and fans of Aaron Eckhart, who is actually a badass and grizzled Staff Sgt. The rest of the cast is wasted, and if I see another movie where Michelle Rodruiguez pops up as a marine named "Santos," or anything similar, she will have fully lost her tough-chick street cred (although her "I got guns too, bitch" was a clear highlight in Avatar).

Dogs of War (1981)

Bleak, taut war thriller about a mercenary who gets involved with a platinum rich African nation headed by, you guessed it, a corrupt, murderous psychopath. Christopher Walken plays the mercenary, a paranoid spook who basically lives only to serve whatever master is paying him, in this case, a business conglomerate looking to overthrow the government to put in a dummy one to rape the country for all its resources. The film is split into two parts, and the first part is more drawn out; showing Walken's interactions with the nation, there is little English dialogue, and the story is told through lush, intricate visuals. The film settles into a more derivative vibe during its second half, but it feels earned and legitimate. Tom Berenger is on hand fleetingly as Walken's right hand man, and Ed O'Neill cameos as a hesitant member of their crew. Walken holds the film together with his trademark intensity, with a badass, lean sense of purpose that he could portray in his younger days. The action is well choreographed and surprisingly restrained, but it does not manage to top the films more elaborate and clever non-violent editing and camerawork.

Recommended for fans of intense '80s war films more along the lines of Casualties of War and The Killing Fields rather than Red Dawn or The Delta Force.

Pearl Harbor (2001)

What an ill-advised project; a large-scale depiction of the epic attack sandwiched in between a cochamamie love story with 2 hunks and a babe. As strong as the central attack is, and some of the side scenes and performances are, assuming the main plot here would keep the viewer's interest alongside the action is borderline offensive. Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale are wooden and lifeless, but the script does not do them any favors; the dialogue in their scenes could've been written by my kid sister. Josh Hartnett comes out relatively unscathed by downplaying every nuance of his ridiculous character, as does Cuba Gooding, Jr. Alec Baldwin, Dan Aykroyd, Ewen Bremner, and Tom Sizemore register strongly in their stock roles (especially man-god Baldwin), and Jon Voight is a convincing F.D.R. It is a painful reality that the side stories of the film, as derivative and predictable as they are, end up being far more diverting than the central story. They have camp value, and are energetic and lively enough to provide consistent chuckles, whereas the love story vacuums all residual interest. There is potential here; Cuba's scenes, based on real life, actually achieve a very high level of war-film energy. But the main thrust of the story is total and complete contrived bullshit, and no amount of heroism, spectacle, or hard-boiled Baldwin can make up for it.

Skip it, save for a casual viewing for camp value. That's how I got through the 3 hour shitstorm without feeling like I wasted my time...but I still can't recommend it, even slightly.

The Final Countdown (1980)

Sweet, if fleeting, Twilight Zone-esque flick about an aircraft carrier that gets warped back to 1941 Pearl Harbor, a day before the attack from Japan. The story is set up almost like a late 70s disaster picture; everyone has their own little defining character quirks, and the ensemble stands out more than any one lead. That being said, I don't have to tell you that Kirk Douglas plays a fat, swinging dick of a captain, whose concern for his crew overrides any grander notions of power. Martin Sheen plays a DOD suit charged with analyzing the crew and reporting any misconduct. James Farentino is the stalwart pilot, who happens to be writing a nonfiction book on WWII. Ron O'Neal is Douglas's loyal, but hot-headed second-in-command. Charles Durning and Katherine Ross play a WWII-era Senator and his secretary, respectively, who get caught up with the drama. The story mostly involves the ethical implications of launching a pre-emptive strike against the approaching Japanese fleet; should they take the initiative, and avenge an attack that hasn't been made yet, or rest and let history safely play out as it should? That central conceit holds the movie afloat, and keeps the tension and character work interesting for the running time. Still, there is nothing here that matches the cerebral musings of the best Twilight Zones, and the military hardware, although impressive, takes up far too much screen time. The same cannot be said for Troma President Lloyd Kaufman, who has a tragically small role as a communications officer on board.

Recommended for fans of sci-fi parables, a la Zone or The Outer Limits, or strong naval stories. Or, of course, people who can't get enough of Mr. Douglas's gloriously inflamed cleft (like me).

P.S. There is an interview with Kaufman on the DVD, where he admits that he believed, as a production manager, that the movie was dead in the water due to a cantankerous cast and crew, and the only things that saved it were the efforts of producer Peter Douglas, and Kirk Douglas, whose professionalism seems unbelievably strong for when he was at this point in his career. Kaufman lovingly recalls Kirk's reaction after watching him do his cameo: "You're a better actor than you are a producer, and you're not a good actor." "That was Kirk," Kaufman says. I believe it.

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Best film made about Iraq so far, although somewhat cliched narrative conventions keep it from attaining the modern classic status many seem to believe it achieves. Jeremy Renner and Antoine Mackie are a bomb defuser and his spotter, respectively, as they traverse the tough Iraqi landscape over the last month of their tour. Renner is a great loose cannon, actively putting himself in harms way to attain the adrenaline rush that fuels his expertise at defusal. Mackie is also very strong, and is especially chilling when his character exposes his rough, unstable edges. Guy Pearce, Ralph Finnes, and David Morse have fun cameos, but the film is generally intense and heart-wrenching; we end up really caring about the characters, and each successive bomb defusal sequence is more tense than the last as a result. Kathryn Bigelow stages the first successful Iraqi battle sequences since Three Kings. Although the film never quite reaches the heights of her classic films Near Dark and Point Break, it is another example of her mastery of action sequences and her unique insight into relationships in the trenches.

Highly Recommended. Not for ADD morons, but then again, what is, except pills and youtube.

Paths of Glory (1957)

This early film from Stanley Kubrick has Kirk Douglas leading the cast as a colonel in WW I defending the rights of several of his men who retreated after a failed advance. The early scenes in the trenches are well portrayed and appropriately somber and tragic, but it is the later courtroom scenes where the film truly connects emotionally and intellectually. The court martial takes place in a grand palace hall, and the tension that builds in the decidedly high-stakes proceedings is palpable.

Kubrick's touch can primarily be seen in two places: the framing of grandiose scenes such as the aforementioned court martial, and a bleak sense of humor. The somber tone of the film is made bearable by several subtle forms of gallows humor in the spirit of Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange, particularly satirizing the French high command and their foppish attitudes toward the countless men dying daily on the front. The military element, with obvious liberal overtones and a definitive anti-war stance, reeks of Kirk Douglas, but, aside from the early scenes that give the film a sense of preemptive overkill, the subject matter is quite effective. The ending, like much of Kubrick's work, is a knockout.

Recommended for fans of Kubrick, Douglas, and classic cinema. Not the most exciting film in the world, but an enriching watch nonetheless.