I know it's been out for awhile, but I finally saw it last night for six bucks.
My take on it is that it's a lot of fun as a conventional Marines in action, shoot 'em up. Many times during the movie, I thought I was watching a
Marines recruitment film.
The other thought that crossed my mind is that this kind of film says to the rest of the world (yes, the world will see it through some foreign
theaters as well as international DVD release) like, you know, don't mess with the USA because as you can see, our Marines are bad ass and determined
to kill. So like, if there's any conspiratorial propaganda message in this movie, it's telling the rest of the world that the USA can still kick ass
so don't get any big ideas about us being weak or anything.
So much of the plot and dialogue are so corny you do feel like laughing, but I enjoyed the heck out of it and would definitely see it again on DVD and
it's one of those I'm glad I saw on the big screen. Hey, if you're in the mood for an action flick, go see it on the big screen and have fun. It's
very satisfactory on that level.
O.K., so there are some really stupid things about it. As others have said, these aliens appear to have technology that's only about 100 years ahead
of ours (truth be told, in real life the secret technology defense wise would probably blow our minds literally and figuratively). So, the fact that
they are not very much more advanced makes it a fight, otherwise we would be toast if the "hostiles" were like 1,000 years ahead of us.
The thing about them wanting to take over Earth for the water is really dumb. Any astronomer or cosmologist can tell you the universe is full of water
and/or the chemicals to make it. There are many trillions of tons of ice all over the galaxy. So, these aliens can't melt ice?
I've also got this thing about all the aliens in all the movies have to be gooey for some reason I don't understand. What's up with that? Couldn't
they just for once not be gooey and sticky and slimy? Just once? I guess not.
The taller ones, the so-called "leaders" of these aliens kind of dance around like puppets on strings, not very convincing.
Aliens would at least have infrared technology, which means no marine could hide from them because of the heat signature of the human body. Cops use
this all the time when they search an area by chopper for a criminal on the run. The aliens should at least have the same technology as the Fort Worth
Police Department. You would think.
The Staff Sergeant's pep talk to the little boy whose Dad just died --- that's straight out of the John Wayne scene in the old movie THE GREEN BERETS.
So that was like basically stolen from an earlier movie.
Look, here's the bottom line --- if hostile aliens invade our planet to colonize, all of the armed forces in the world will be paralyzed and
neutralized. We will not be technologically capable of doing anything to stop them. If they want to make slaves out of us, they will, no problem. If
they want to populate Earth with ten billion hybrids, they will, no problem. They wouldn't even have to blow up anything or set anything on fire to
kill all humans if that's the plan. Real aliens would not be anything we could fight or battle. Our technology is 150 more advanced than the Civil War
days. Not very advanced.
Bottom line --- this is a very entertaining movie if you want to see shoot 'em up action. I kind of wish the thing was about America being invaded by
Chinese or Russians (like RED DAWN) because it would have been much more believable. Would I recommend it? Yes! It's just plain fun!
Oh yeah, one more thing... the scene where the Sarge proves that he's memorized all the dog tag numbers of all his unit's men who did not make it back
from combat in the Middle East ----- that has to be one of the silliest things in the history of cinema. Ask any veteran if he memorized the dog tag
numbers of his buddies who died in action and I'll bet he looks at you very puzzled and says "Huh??? What????" Totally ridiculous.
edit on
12-4-2011 by switching yard because: (no reason given)