War Movies Blog

What is the best way to present a thriller about genuine danger that could end all life on Earth within hours? Yes, you guessed it - by using Matthew Broderick as boy-genius and home-grown hacker and Ally Sheedy as girl-next-door, who for some unknown reason decides to hang around with him. Well, it wouldn’t be my personal choice, but obviously back in 1983 this was the best that Hollywood could do.

There were some great war movies in history, there were some telling the unforgettable stories, there were some that asked a philosophical question, some that shown the true nature of human kind. Well, Rules of Engagement would not qualify for any of those categories...

In 1994 the civil war in Rwanda has changed - the Hutu militia took the matters in their own hands and solved the tension between them and Tutsi in worst possible way - by genocide. Civilians were trapped in country turning into chaos, while the world just watched it on TV, not wanting to get involved, even to save the civilians from being killed on the streets.

World War 2 had many faces and inspired many movies - some of them showed the most spectacular events of the war, but The Caine Mutiny is not one of them - here we have the other type of war movies, the drama (almost chamber drama) that takes place on one of many warships on the Pacific away from the glorious battles, but not away from the drama of the war itself.

World War 1 was one of the bloodiest and most senseless conflicts in human kind history - the war started for no better reason than having a good war again, the weapons used were more deadly and cruel than ever, the 4 years and millions of dead soldiers changed absolutely nothing. So what is a better way to tell that story than through a musical?

This movie was called many things - Omar Sharif called it the worst film in his career, it was sometimes referred as the worst financial flop, sometimes as the flop with biggest budget in history, sometimes it was listed among the worst movies ever. Yes, The 13th Warrior was a financial flop, but comparing to other flops this one was one hell of enjoyable experience.

Once Nicolas Cage was considered to be actor with great potential, but with time the productions he chose to join were... deeply concerning to put it nicely. From infamous Wicker Man to slightly bizarre Left Behind his career seems to be a constant roller-coaster of bad choices and really bad choices and glimpse of hope from time to time. Windtalkers was one of the production that he actually should not be ashamed of... Comparing.

After Kenau from 2014 Dutch cinema reached for the story of another of their past heroes, this time Michiel de Ruyter, a Dutch admiral that challenged the English navy in 17th century when his country was in a dire situation. And again they managed to make a war movie that was both visually impressive and at the same time historically accurate (up to a point).

Each time American war movie gets the backing of the army (or to be exact of any branch of the armed forces) each time the effect is complete disaster. The reason? When army gives you cooperation that includes all the vehicles you will need, all the stand-ins that you need, even expensive locations that you need. The price? The script will most likely be altered to fit the views of the army, no matter if they make a lot of sense or not. Flight of the Intruder is another example of such cooperation, but with a little twist...

It often makes me wonder how direct-to-video projects (like Company of Heroes, Battle Force or Jarhead 2) are able to gather enough money to be actually filmed. I mean if you use title of popular computer game in title it means that you have the gimmick to gather some viewers, but if someone thought he would actually make money on it... no comment.