War Machine

Movies that portrait many different kinds of wars, i have seen some really good ones over the years. I have seen a couple of ones that are truly terrible, but in general most war films are still good enough to enjoy. Some of the best ones are usually the films that capture the war in a realistic way. Then you have the completely unrealistic war movies like Rambo: First Blood Part 2, which is still a fun movie to watch after so many years. If you are more a fan of classic war movies then one of the greatest is of course the 1979 war movie Apocalypse Now, from legendary director Francis Ford Coppola. This is truly a masterpiece in the category of war movies, and the longer version Apocalypse Now Redux ( that was released back in the year of 2001 ) is my favourite version of this film. Not only is this a brilliant film for showing a realistic portrait of how the Vietnam war really looked like, it had the most amazing cast and brilliant acting from each character. This film is a must have in your physical movie collection. We also have some more modern great war films that don´t get mentioned much at all. For example, how many of you have seen the 2018 war movie 12 Strong? I actually paid tickets to watch this film twice in cinema, which doesn´t happen often. This film is directed by Nicolai Fugisig, based on the book Horse Soldiers by author Doug Stanton. We follow a group from the U.S. Army Special Forces sent to Afghanistan immediately after the September 11 attacks. What i appreciate about 12 Strong is to see the companionship among American soldiers and Afghanistan soldiers, that is the ones who want to help U.S. Army Special Forces take down Taliban terrorists. In general there are some good acting performances in this film, especially from Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon. The cinematography by Rasmus Videbak ( who worked on the film adaptation of The Dark Tower, based on the novels of Stephen King ) looks really good, while director Nicolai Fuglsig manage to balance the story and capture the terrible atmopshere of how horrible a war can be. Well worth a watch on streamimg or physical media. Last year i was seeing onlime on different articles that director Patrick Hughes, who directed The Expendables 3 which i really enjoyed ( i know some people don´t because it´s PG13 ), his latest film War Machine was going to be released on Netflix. Since he did a really good job on The Expendables 3 regarding the action scenes, would he succeed with War Machine as well? I decided to sit down and review this film, hoping it would be a positive surprise. Is this a must see on Netflx, or should you skip War Machine and watch The Expendables 3 instead?

2 years have passed since Staff Seargent ( Alan Ritchson ) lost his brother in Afghanistan, during a Taliban terror attack on his team members. The Seargent joins RASP to earn assignment to a battalion of the consolidated 75th Ranger Regiment, and is given the candidate number of 81. It becomes very clear that 81 is very well trained, but don´t really get along with the other fellow recruits. Suddenly there are reports of a blasts in the sky, while everyone is doing the military exercise. Not knowing what crash landed, 81 lead a team of soldiers to find out what really happened. They are about to face their biggest mission yet, that could end their lives

What if you combined War Of The Worlds with the 2012 sci fi action film Battleship, and set most of the film up in forest areas? That sounds about the right combination for this Netflix sci fi action film War Machine. This is a very male macho driven military film that we used to get in the action shelves inside of video rental stores. And this is exactly why this is such a solid sci fi action movie, it´s shaped for a certain kind of audience that it was made for. Lots of violence, robotic machine figures, lots of ammo, the brotherhood that soldiers have together in war. You can pretty much say that War Machine is the ultimate war feast for movie nerds who really love effective CGI effects and simple story telling. And i will be honest and say this is probably one of the better military action films i have seen in a while. The plot is just as thin as Eric Trump´s pointless speeches, but at least War Machine have something to say compared to Eric Trump ( who anyone shouldn´t take seriously at all ). Where this film succeed the most is with the hard hitting action scenes. The war scenes are very well made, and even if we do have a lot of CGI effects they do look really good. The action scenes are intense and i have to say in general the actinng is actually good. We know from the past there have  been American sci fi action films that lacks good acting, so thankfully this film proves that you can actually find solid acting performances in War Machine. Lead actor Alan Ritchson ( who is really good in the Guy Ritchie film The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare ) as the character 81 have probably done his best acting performance in his career so far in this film War Machine. I feel that he really capture the personality of a broken soldier, who struggles every day but still go out there because he have to. The fact that he doesn´t want to be seen as a hero, just a man, this gives the character a much more deeper depth about his personality. War Machine tells a story of how important it is to stick together as humans beeings, even in the worst possible moments when all hope seems lost. War Machine is steady adrenaline pumped action film, that´s specifically made for fans of Battleship and similar films with science fiction influences. It´s violent, brutal and a hell of a good time. One of the better Netflix films released this year for sure. Director Patrick Hughes ( the director of The Expendables 3 ) proves with War Machine why he is such a talented film maker when it comes to making action movies, who actually understand what the audience wants.

Rating: DDDD