Worst modern war film of all time

[HansBolter]

Aspects of Fury were good, but the whole premise of a German battalion being so inept it would impale itself on a stationary tank was so laughable it ruined everything else in the movie.

If the Germans were truly as inept as depicted in Fury (think Hogan's Heroes) the war wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as it did.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Some have been pretty darned bad: Monument Men and, I'd submit, Flags of Our Fathers.

Respectfully disagree. I thought Monument Men very well done. Flags of Our Fathers-while not as compelling as Letters... was certainly watchable.

And then there have been some real gems: ....Enemy at the Gates...

Enemy at the Gates? The one with Jude Law? Where this Brit with a horrendous accent-who is in turn surrounded by other Brits with horrendous accents-plays the role of a famous Soviet sniper? Nah mate. That thing was beer-and-pretzels 'meh' all the way.

Ed Harris was the only thing worthwhile about that one. Well maybe also the CGI of the Stukas attacking the ships during the river crossing.

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: Miller

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: Miller

Fury, not bad until the final 30 minute battle scene where a single tank crew kills half an elite* SS division..

Wasn’t that scene inspired by a real life episode narrated in Belton Y. Cooper's “Death Traps”?

Have you actually watched it? After the initial surprise whereby they would have lost maybe a dozen men, any sane commander would have ordered a retreat to a safe distance, break out the anti-tank rockets and blow up Mr Pitt and co. Instead they send wave after wave of men to attack the tank on foot, but not the back of it, lets charge it from the front where all the guns are mounted.....

I have seen the movie but I haven’t read the book. Time to open it.

[Elessar2]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Some have been pretty darned bad: Monument Men and, I'd submit, Flags of Our Fathers.

Respectfully disagree. I thought Monument Men very well done. Flags of Our Fathers-while not as compelling as Letters... was certainly watchable.

And then there have been some real gems: ....Enemy at the Gates...

Enemy at the Gates? The one with Jude Law? Where this Brit with a horrendous accent-who is in turn surrounded by other Brits with horrendous accents-plays the role of a famous Soviet sniper? Nah mate. That thing was beer-and-pretzels 'meh' all the way.

Ed Harris was the only thing worthwhile about that one. Well maybe also the CGI of the Stukas attacking the ships during the river crossing.

Of course they totally ruined the character when he fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book and just had to wander out of cover to confirm his kill. [8|]

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Elessar2

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy




Respectfully disagree. I thought Monument Men very well done. Flags of Our Fathers-while not as compelling as Letters... was certainly watchable.



Enemy at the Gates? The one with Jude Law? Where this Brit with a horrendous accent-who is in turn surrounded by other Brits with horrendous accents-plays the role of a famous Soviet sniper? Nah mate. That thing was beer-and-pretzels 'meh' all the way.

Ed Harris was the only thing worthwhile about that one. Well maybe also the CGI of the Stukas attacking the ships during the river crossing.

Of course they totally ruined the character when he fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book and just had to wander out of cover to confirm his kill. [8|]

Even worse - to make sure you understood he was one of the "bad guys" they had him hang a little boy. All thoughts of two honorable snipers squaring off in a fair fight go out the window with that image.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
Well maybe also the CGI of the Stukas attacking the ships during the river crossing.

Ohh...forgot about that. Yes. That whole river crossing chaos scene was nicely done.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Elessar2

ORIGINAL: HansBolter





Ed Harris was the only thing worthwhile about that one. Well maybe also the CGI of the Stukas attacking the ships during the river crossing.

Of course they totally ruined the character when he fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book and just had to wander out of cover to confirm his kill. [8|]

Even worse - to make sure you understood he was one of the "bad guys" they had him hang a little boy. All thoughts of two honorable snipers squaring off in a fair fight go out the window with that image.

I couldn't get past the 25-50 feet engagement envelope that they were 'sniping' from for most of the movie in the tractor factory. Hollywood can't do a sniping movie with realistic distances because seeing a small dot fall over from 1/2 mile away doesn't make for good cinema I guess.

[mind_messing]

I really liked Enemy at the Gates - solid war movie that did a reasonably good job of conveying the scale and intensity of the Stalingrad fighting. Not perfect, but pretty solid all round.

My submission would be Red Dawn. US High School football team takes on and beats the Soviet invasion? That's a bigger fantasy than the films premise.

If there was not the caveat for modern, I'd have said "The Green Berets". Wayne's worst, without a doubt, and that includes the one where he plays a Mongolian!

[HansBolter]

All your comments about how the writers destroyed the character Ed Harris played are certainly valid, but he still managed to stand out with his performance.

He is one of my favorite actors. he simply nails everything he does.

He just about stole the show in Apollo 13.

[Big B]

ALL contemporary WW2 films are horrible, I don't know why anyone bothers with them - unless they like being lectured or enjoy historical inaccuracy.
They are all made by Bean-counters who peddle the likes of Battlefield 1942 X-Box.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Big B

ALL contemporary WW2 films are horrible, I don't know why anyone bothers with them - unless they like being lectured or enjoy historical inaccuracy.
They are all made by Bean-counters who peddle the likes of Battlefield 1942 X-Box.

warspite1

I think that is unfair Big B. You obviously haven't watched Pearl Harbor yet.

[gabeeg]

By far "Pearl Harbor" the Ben affleck one. Awful, I was embarrassed watching in the theater when it came out.

[Big B]

I stand most humbly corrected Warspite1 [:D]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Big B

ALL contemporary WW2 films are horrible, I don't know why anyone bothers with them - unless they like being lectured or enjoy historical inaccuracy.
They are all made by Bean-counters who peddle the likes of Battlefield 1942 X-Box.

warspite1

I think that is unfair Big B. You obviously haven't watched Pearl Harbor yet.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Big B

I stand most humbly corrected Warspite1 [:D]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Big B

ALL contemporary WW2 films are horrible, I don't know why anyone bothers with them - unless they like being lectured or enjoy historical inaccuracy.
They are all made by Bean-counters who peddle the likes of Battlefield 1942 X-Box.

warspite1

I think that is unfair Big B. You obviously haven't watched Pearl Harbor yet.

warspite1

Good man.

Some people say the film is crass, disrespectful, embarrassing, ahistorical, the CGI is toilet, the story is turgid, it's poorly acted, poorly scripted and poorly directed........ but if you can get past all that, and see the film for what it really is, then I'm sure you'll agree it has.... er... a quality all of it's own.


One of the dumbest lines in the entire history of Hollywood....
I think World War II just started!

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Big B

I stand most humbly corrected Warspite1 [:D]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Big B

ALL contemporary WW2 films are horrible, I don't know why anyone bothers with them - unless they like being lectured or enjoy historical inaccuracy.
They are all made by Bean-counters who peddle the likes of Battlefield 1942 X-Box.

warspite1

I think that is unfair Big B. You obviously haven't watched Pearl Harbor yet.

Just an insight, .... my brother Bill is an accomplished screen writer of nearly 40 years, and has under his belt many hit films like: The Terminator, Terminator 2 Judgement Day, Exorcist: The Beginning, The Abyss, I.T., Judge Dredd, 13th Warrior, etc..and a lot more.
Point is - I know the Hollywood system from the inside.... They do NOT allow real stories, even though they usually are 10 times better than the crap they film.
It sucks, but forget modern Hollywood movies...maybe in the near future conglomerates of independents will kill that Hollywood horror machine.

EDIT: A couple yeas ago there was even a project to tell the Tale of the Battle Off Samar in Leyte Gulf, but it didtn't have what the studios wanted - so it died.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Good man.

Some people say the film is crass, disrespectful, embarrassing, ahistorical, the CGI is toilet, the story is turgid, it's poorly acted, poorly scripted and poorly directed........ but if you can get past all that, and see the film for what it really is, then I'm sure you'll agree it has.... er... a quality all of it's own.


One of the dumbest lines in the entire history of Hollywood....
I think World War II just started!

Are you implying that Britain and its Commonwealth hangers-on and their little tiff with Adolf and Benito was more than a local wrestling match? Soccer hooligans hadn't even been invented yet! And as for Mustache Joe, he had his butt kicked all the way to Moscow so you can't call his efforts in 1941 "war"!

Obviously WWII couldn't have happened without Ben Affleck being there to "dramatize" it!

[oaltinyay]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Well, my nomination is for a film pitting WWII naval vessels against alien invaders : Battleship

So many bad things in there it would take too long to write them all up so I will state my biggest issue - The USS Missouri is brought into service to fight the aliens and just happens to have ammo in the magazines. It uses its mighty 16" guns to hit the alien ships and hurts them but does not destroy them.

The aliens sink Missouri with their rasp-torpedoes that bore holes through the ship. The hero switches to a slightly more modern DD that still has a 5'' gun and closes with the damaged alien vessel. Do they fire the 5" gun to finish it off? Nooooooo! They get some rifles from the armoury and close in enough to shoot the alien commander on his bridge!

I think Ben Affleck was the protagonist in that one too. The idea must have been to use bad acting to distract from a terrible plot and abysmal realism.

I can't believe that you actually watched that movie.

Did you decide that you wanted to rue your existence for more time on this Earth? Why oh why would you waste your remaining time on this planet watching that? Why not do something productive-like take up smoking-next time?

No, Missouri didnt sink ! , she just "surigaoed" them as she crossed their T at about 1000 meters in daylight ( hard to tell in CGI )

[rockmedic109]

I have never had the misfortune to be drunk enough to ever see Battleship. A compelling reason for sobriety.

But I do not think I would ever dignify it with the term War Film. I am not sure I could even use Sci-fi to describe it. But it might have as much historical accuracy as some of the others mentioned in this thread.

[jdsrae]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Good man.

Some people say the film is crass, disrespectful, embarrassing, ahistorical, the CGI is toilet, the story is turgid, it's poorly acted, poorly scripted and poorly directed........ but if you can get past all that, and see the film for what it really is, then I'm sure you'll agree it has.... er... a quality all of it's own.


One of the dumbest lines in the entire history of Hollywood....
I think World War II just started!

Are you implying that Britain and its Commonwealth hangers-on and their little tiff with Adolf and Benito was more than a local wrestling match? Soccer hooligans hadn't even been invented yet! And as for Mustache Joe, he had his butt kicked all the way to Moscow so you can't call his efforts in 1941 "war"!

Obviously WWII couldn't have happened without Ben Affleck being there to "dramatize" it!

Obviously, you can’t have a World anything until the US of A are involved.
Better yet when it’s a domestic stoush but they still label it World ala their bastardisation of cricket, ie: baseball.

[Chris21wen]

Sahara (1995) gets my vote for inaccuaracy. Americans in Tobruk really?