Day-Tripper
5-Year Member
- Joined
- May 16, 2014
- Messages
- 857
Here's a list of war/military bad war movies.
1. The Great Escape (1963); Once one of my favorite films. However, in retrospect the Allied POWs in the German Stalag seems remarkably well-fed & healthy. Always clean-shaven. Uniforms always in good condition. Why would the even want to escape? There was no weather. Always sunny. No snow. No cold. It tooks many months to build those tunnels, surely there must have been rainy or snowy days in Germany in 1944, no? Like all Hollywood war movies, every German speaks fluent English. James Coburn's Australian accent? Ugh.
2. Windtalkers (2002); a Nicholas Cage vehicle. In the actual WW2 the average age of Marines in the Pacific War was probably 20. In this movie? Around 40. The Marines were told to kill Navajo code talkers lest they be captured by the Japanese. Absurd. No such order would ever have been given (and wasn't; even regarding Japanese-American translators) or ever carried out.
3. The Alamo (1961); John Wayne as director and star (Davy Crockett). I can't believe I actually liked this film once. It was just horrible almost every minute of it. The writers of this turkey should have been shot. The Duke's last war movie. Redeemed himself nicely a year later in "True Grit".
4. Pearl Harbor (2001); OK, honestly I never even liked this one to begin with. Historically inaccurate, i.e. no US Army Air Force pilot ever got assigned to the RAF. If a US pilot went to England to fly against the Luftwaffe he did so on his own & was technically a deserter. The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo used bombers & bomber crews, not fighter pilots suddenly switched over to flying B-25s. Alec Baldwin is a fine actor, but his overweight portrayal of Jimmy Doolittle was hysterical. Oh, yeah, and Cuba Gooding Jr telling a dying Naval officer "You tained us good sir." When, of course, the Navy trained black sailors to be messmen & nothing else.
5. The Patriot (2000); Mel Gibson sure hates the British (and, of course, the Jews). This movie implies the Redcoats were a sort of Einsatzgruppen murdering their way across South Carolina. Untrue. Gibson's speech-a-fying and historically unlikely benevolence towards black slaves were hard to take.
6. We Were Soldiers (2002); Mel Gibosn again. What a tremendous book turned into such a trash movie. Why film a Vietnam War movie in North Carolina? Why? Aren't there palm trees in Southern California, Florida, Hawaii .... hell, even Mexico or Puerto Rico? Again, Gibson's endless speeches (when a couple of words of command would suffice) makes me wonder why his men didn't frag him. An otherwise good actor, Sam Elliott, renders a ridiculous version of a lifer sgt.
7. The Green Berets (1968); John Wayne again. When this movie was shown to troops actually in Vietnam they either walked out on it, laughed or booed. It was simply so bad.
8. Gone With The Wind (1939); overall a very good movie & not essentially a war movie. But with the Civil War as the central theme you'd think there would be a single reference to, you know, SLAVERY. Nope. MGM studios didn't want to lose the white Southern movie market. Also, why so many lymies in the cast? Olivia DeHavilland, Vivian Leigh, Lelsie Howard. Even Clark Gable (who wisely made no effort at a Southern accent) was from Ohio. No Southern actors in 1939 Hollywood? Even Hattie McDaniel was from Kansas.
9. The Battle of the Bulge (1965); a movie I was really liked cause I, well, liked all war movies. In retrospect, upon watching it you'd come away thinking the only reason the US Army won the battle was because ther Germans had no fuel for their panzers. The Wehrmacht comes across as a disciplined war machine (Robert Shaw). The US Army filled with hustlers like Telly Savalas & morons like James MacArthur. No real depiction of the American heroism in perhaps its greatest battlefield victory. No reference to Patton's 3rd Army breaking the siege at Bastogne. Also, one second the battle is conducted in a ragine snow storm (as it was) but then the final tank battle takes place in what appears to be the desert, with a complete lack of snow. Did it all melt? Again, all the soldiers appear to be 40 year olds.
10. Any movie about the War on Terror (Iraq & Afghanistan); possible exceptions "The Hurt Locker" & "American Sniper".
11. Any war movie with Chuck Norris in it. Or Sylvester Stallone.
12. Any movie with an actor portraying Adolf Hitler.
13. Alexander (2004); Oliver Stone directs good-to-great movies, except for Alexander. Colin Farrell is a good actor, except in Alexander. Ponderous. Slow. I get it Oliver, India was Alexander's Vietnam. You're still pissed off for serving in the 25th Infantry Division in South Vietnam. OK OK OK. Didn't Platoon (1986) & JFK (1991) exorcise those demons sufficiently?
1. The Great Escape (1963); Once one of my favorite films. However, in retrospect the Allied POWs in the German Stalag seems remarkably well-fed & healthy. Always clean-shaven. Uniforms always in good condition. Why would the even want to escape? There was no weather. Always sunny. No snow. No cold. It tooks many months to build those tunnels, surely there must have been rainy or snowy days in Germany in 1944, no? Like all Hollywood war movies, every German speaks fluent English. James Coburn's Australian accent? Ugh.
2. Windtalkers (2002); a Nicholas Cage vehicle. In the actual WW2 the average age of Marines in the Pacific War was probably 20. In this movie? Around 40. The Marines were told to kill Navajo code talkers lest they be captured by the Japanese. Absurd. No such order would ever have been given (and wasn't; even regarding Japanese-American translators) or ever carried out.
3. The Alamo (1961); John Wayne as director and star (Davy Crockett). I can't believe I actually liked this film once. It was just horrible almost every minute of it. The writers of this turkey should have been shot. The Duke's last war movie. Redeemed himself nicely a year later in "True Grit".
4. Pearl Harbor (2001); OK, honestly I never even liked this one to begin with. Historically inaccurate, i.e. no US Army Air Force pilot ever got assigned to the RAF. If a US pilot went to England to fly against the Luftwaffe he did so on his own & was technically a deserter. The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo used bombers & bomber crews, not fighter pilots suddenly switched over to flying B-25s. Alec Baldwin is a fine actor, but his overweight portrayal of Jimmy Doolittle was hysterical. Oh, yeah, and Cuba Gooding Jr telling a dying Naval officer "You tained us good sir." When, of course, the Navy trained black sailors to be messmen & nothing else.
5. The Patriot (2000); Mel Gibson sure hates the British (and, of course, the Jews). This movie implies the Redcoats were a sort of Einsatzgruppen murdering their way across South Carolina. Untrue. Gibson's speech-a-fying and historically unlikely benevolence towards black slaves were hard to take.
6. We Were Soldiers (2002); Mel Gibosn again. What a tremendous book turned into such a trash movie. Why film a Vietnam War movie in North Carolina? Why? Aren't there palm trees in Southern California, Florida, Hawaii .... hell, even Mexico or Puerto Rico? Again, Gibson's endless speeches (when a couple of words of command would suffice) makes me wonder why his men didn't frag him. An otherwise good actor, Sam Elliott, renders a ridiculous version of a lifer sgt.
7. The Green Berets (1968); John Wayne again. When this movie was shown to troops actually in Vietnam they either walked out on it, laughed or booed. It was simply so bad.
8. Gone With The Wind (1939); overall a very good movie & not essentially a war movie. But with the Civil War as the central theme you'd think there would be a single reference to, you know, SLAVERY. Nope. MGM studios didn't want to lose the white Southern movie market. Also, why so many lymies in the cast? Olivia DeHavilland, Vivian Leigh, Lelsie Howard. Even Clark Gable (who wisely made no effort at a Southern accent) was from Ohio. No Southern actors in 1939 Hollywood? Even Hattie McDaniel was from Kansas.
9. The Battle of the Bulge (1965); a movie I was really liked cause I, well, liked all war movies. In retrospect, upon watching it you'd come away thinking the only reason the US Army won the battle was because ther Germans had no fuel for their panzers. The Wehrmacht comes across as a disciplined war machine (Robert Shaw). The US Army filled with hustlers like Telly Savalas & morons like James MacArthur. No real depiction of the American heroism in perhaps its greatest battlefield victory. No reference to Patton's 3rd Army breaking the siege at Bastogne. Also, one second the battle is conducted in a ragine snow storm (as it was) but then the final tank battle takes place in what appears to be the desert, with a complete lack of snow. Did it all melt? Again, all the soldiers appear to be 40 year olds.
10. Any movie about the War on Terror (Iraq & Afghanistan); possible exceptions "The Hurt Locker" & "American Sniper".
11. Any war movie with Chuck Norris in it. Or Sylvester Stallone.
12. Any movie with an actor portraying Adolf Hitler.
13. Alexander (2004); Oliver Stone directs good-to-great movies, except for Alexander. Colin Farrell is a good actor, except in Alexander. Ponderous. Slow. I get it Oliver, India was Alexander's Vietnam. You're still pissed off for serving in the 25th Infantry Division in South Vietnam. OK OK OK. Didn't Platoon (1986) & JFK (1991) exorcise those demons sufficiently?
