Escape to the Movies: Act of Valor

[Siuki]

Did anyone else get a scare when he stopped himself midway from saying "see you next time?" I thought another good series was getting cancelled.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I wonder if Moviebob spent so much time qualifying his opinion because there really isn't a lot to this movie. B action movie with above average special effects seems to cover it.


OT: Moviebob seemed to be upset in the quick facts at the end because the US military doesn't rent out its stuff unless people make them out to be the good guys. I'm curious, do you think ANYBODY would contribute to a film that makes them look bad?

 

[Kargathia]

I wonder what a non-American would think about the propaganda-level of this film.

Not sure about the film, but there's too much of it in the review already.

There is such a thing as respecting people who are good at their job, but this amount of ass-kissing and hero worship was obscene.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I wonder what a non-American would think about the propaganda-level of this film.

Not sure about the film, but there's too much of it in the review already.

There is such a thing as respecting people who are good at their job, but this amount of ass-kissing and hero worship was obscene.

I'm inclined to agree. Half the review was spent apologizing for having a friggin' opinion, which is honestly extremely non-MovieBob-like. Hence why I'd like to have a non-American take on this thing.

 

[Doitpow]

Two things

1. Not all propaganda is recruitment drives. Half of it is justifying what you have done. I'm not a fan of the work of 90% of the military and the more "realistic" movies about real wars get, the more I see it as attempts to further justify often illegal military action.

2. Anyone see this making a splash outside of middle America? Didn't think so.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I am a sucker for military tactics and squad based combat so I'm gonna give this one a try. Even though I'd never consider joining any branch of military. I have very low opinion of the military at this moment. Not just US military, but military organizations everywhere. Hard to know who the actual good guys are anymore.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Wasn't there this big horror film this month about a guy trying to sell a haunted house? Because he mentioned it in is article but hasn't mentioned it in these videos.

That was The Woman In Black, and it's North American release was a couple weeks ago. It's pretty good if you want real old school creep factor horror and don't need blood guts and gore to make something "scary."

Are you sure they're not thinking about Silent House, which isn't scheduled to release until the 9th?

 

[draythefingerless]

well as a non american, as long as you dont rub in my face that youre better than me, im fine. oh and as so long as you dont lie. i respect any man capable of being a soldier in a war. i dont respect the organizations they work for often. when i say i hate the military, i hate its ideals and leaders sometimes(mostly the american one since it is so full of itself) but the individual soldiers themselves i have nothing but respect for.

 

[Roserari]

Was actually hoping to see a review of Bullhead.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

That said I like how you managed to squeeze in that Transformers comment at the beginning of your review. You really are desperate to keep on picking that stab aren't you?

At least it's in reference to stuff he actually has already said. I don't recall ever hearing him rant about piracy before.

OT: Moviebob seemed to be upset in the quick facts at the end because the US military doesn't rent out its stuff unless people make them out to be the good guys. I'm curious, do you think ANYBODY would contribute to a film that makes them look bad?

I'm more curious why it's ever more cost-effective to borrow the real thing than to just order authentic-looking replicas. Surely the military has better things to do with their equipment than loan it out to a bunch of yahoos with cameras.

 

[Coreless]

Act of Valor

MovieBob aims his attention at the epic Navy recruiting film Act of Valor.

Watch Video

Good, fair treatment of the material. I see this movie as an experiment. It's not meant to propagandize (ie, sway the opinions of the masses) as much as it's meant to appeal to already-fans of this kind of thing, and see if it takes.

And on another hand, I really have no problem with the military working to ensure a mostly-positive spin in Hollywood appearances. What they do is usually not very action-filled, and when it is, it's not "fun" or "pretty." It's flat-out ugly. They're going to get plenty of negative spin because what they do involves killing people. (In addition to the statisticallyextremely uncommon scandalous stuff we hear so much about lately.)

An army has to do awful things, and the public needs men able and willing to do those things. Often, we only hear/talk/care about what they do when it goes wrong. Really think about this:

1. We have a military so that we don't all have to deal with all of the awful things they have to do.
2. Because we don't have to deal with those awful things, we forget about them... or at least lose perspective on them.
3. We make unreasonable demands about how they do/don't do those awful things we originally tasked them to do.
4. They don't get it done, so it either doesn't get done or it falls back to us.
5. We decide to have a military, so that we don't have to deal... and so on.

Running PR for an organization like the military must be an absolute nightmare, because even on the best days, you're an organization whose job it is to kill lots of people(or at least stay prepared to do so). Seems to be that job would be impossible without a little "hero porn" and a bit of preemptive damage control.

Having served in the military (US Army) myself, I can tell you that the real job of the military is actually the complete opposite. The job of the military is actually to save lives, and to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic ...first and foremost.

Yes the military does teach you to kill and most of my combat training centered around becoming more efficient at it, but the real goal of the military is always defense first, and to kill only as a last resort.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Wasn't there this big horror film this month about a guy trying to sell a haunted house? Because he mentioned it in is article but hasn't mentioned it in these videos.

That was The Woman In Black, and it's North American release was a couple weeks ago. It's pretty good if you want real old school creep factor horror and don't need blood guts and gore to make something "scary."

Are you sure they're not thinking about Silent House, which isn't scheduled to release until the 9th?

No, I don't know for sure. I just checked out the trailer for Silent House and it looks really good. It's tough to say which one was on the poster's mind, but both deal with haunted houses and more traditional horror type scares. I don't recall Bob mentioning Silent House anywhere, but I'm sure I could have missed it. Good catch though as I now want to see Silent House lol

 

[TheBelgianGuy]

OT: Moviebob seemed to be upset in the quick facts at the end because the US military doesn't rent out its stuff unless people make them out to be the good guys. I'm curious, do you think ANYBODY would contribute to a film that makes them look bad?

I'm more curious why it's ever more cost-effective to borrow the real thing than to just order authentic-looking replicas. Surely the military has better things to do with their equipment than loan it out to a bunch of yahoos with cameras.

The US army lends out advisor, personnel and equipment if they are shown in a good light in a movie. Public relations for the military IS important - and honestly, it's not like 100% of the US army is fighting in the middle east all the time.
So a moviemaker gets lots of support for no cost - why would you order replicas?

Don't really care about US propaganda, but just sayin'.

 

[Ickabod]

ID4 2 needs to happen.

 

[Vault Citizen]

This is the first time I've ever skipped parts of one of Movie Bob's videos, which I did at points I thought that Movie Bob was rambling on too long about how this didn't reflect his opinion of the US Navy so I could get to the parts where he talked about the quality of the movie.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'll give this a pass, thanks Bob.
As a Canadian who is not particularly fond of American military... anything. I'll definitely pass on this one.

Two things

1. Not all propaganda is recruitment drives. Half of it is justifying what you have done. I'm not a fan of the work of 90% of the military and the more "realistic" movies about real wars get, the more I see it as attempts to further justify often illegal military action.

And the more I see them attempt to justify them, the more I'm convinced that the action was wrong. You want to convince me that your military action was justified? Stop trying to justify it.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Thanks, Bob. I came in expecting a review more focused on taking shots at the idea of the movie rather than the movie itself. I'm glad my expectations weren't met. There's a great deal of professionalism in how you handled that. I might see the movie for the opportunity to see these guys in action.

 

[MB202]

It's so funny what Bob says, because the things he thinks are controversial end up not being controversial, and the things he doesn't think will be controversial (like his rants on Transformers, The Expendables, Fast Five, and pirating games) end up becoming just that. Oh the Internet... why you so Internet?

Also, Yvan Eht Nioj! XP