Fury (R)
14/11/14 22:51 Filed in: 2014
Starring: Brad Pitt
October 2014
This review was originally tweeted in Real-time from the back row of a movie theater and appears @BackRoweReviews. Though efforts were made to tease rather than ruin this movie’s memorable lines and moments, some spoilers may exist in the following evaluation. The original tweets appear in black, while follow-up comments appear in red. For concerns over objectionable content, please first refer to one of the many parental movie guide websites. All ratings are based on a four star system. Happy reading!
Pitt rides into tank hell.
This opening sequence reminds me of Sybok cantering through the desert straight toward the camera at the outset of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Obviously the setting (and planet) is completely different here, but the shots themselves are close cousins.
Fury rolls into camp.
They’re greeted with vacant stares. Not much of a hero’s welcome.
A trope of war movies is the new guy...here his name in Norman.
The presence of Michael Pena is another war movie convention; the inclusion of at least one minority on the team.
Don’t touch Shia’s ‘stache.
I don’t begrudge him his defensiveness. After all, it probably took him a year to grow.
Why do fired bullets look like laser beams here?
Not much to add to this, but at times I thought I was watching a Star Wars movie.
Norman is faced with a “simple math” equation. Not so easy to carry out.
Norman is multi-talented: he plays piano, reads palms and is quite the ladies man.
That last one is a bit of a euphemism.
How to ruin a perfectly good egg breakfast.
Yeah, unless I was starving, I wouldn’t eat licked eggs.
Tank dogfight is intense.
Dogfight is typically used for one-on-one plane battles, though. Guess the word I should’ve used is…bullfight?
Pitt’s dogged directive: “Hold this crossroads!”
Two tweets in a row with the word “dog” in them. Woof!
Shia quotes scripture: “Here am I, send me.”
However, he also takes the Lord’s name in vain. Wonder if he knows the one about the impossibility of fresh and salt water flowing from the same fountain (James 3:11)? (Not to mention the third commandment as set forth in Exodus 20:7).
One tank versus an army. Never tell me the odds.
This battle certainly illustrates how a tank can function as a mini-fortress.
The final, high angle shot of the corpse riddled crossroads is horrific.
Although, I actually would’ve expanded the shot out even further, but the point was made, I suppose.
Final analysis: a standard issue war story that evokes a strong sense of time and place.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. A decent war tale, but even Pitt can’t lift the standard story out of the mud.
This certainly isn’t the first tank-centric WWII movie ever made—Sahara (1943), The Desert Fox (1951) and Lebanon (2009) to name three right off the top of my head), nor is it the most original. What is new here are the modern battle sequences which feature rockets and bullets whizzing by like laser beams in a sci-fi shootout. I have no way of knowing if these seemingly anachronistic visuals are accurate or not (I wasn’t there), but I’ve never seen this kind of special effect in any other war movie. As incredulous as it sounds, tanks firing laser beams is the least of this movie’s problems. Relying heavily upon war movie conventions and offering little that hasn’t been seen and done a hundred times before in WWII bloodbaths severely hobbles this film…like a tank that’s thrown a tread. Aside from a few reasonably suspenseful battle scenes and the climactic standoff, there’s really little to recommend the movie, other than the notable cast and high end production values. There’s a standout scene right in the middle of the movie when the tank officers invade the home of two German women. The reprehensible behaviors exhibited by the soldiers (Shia LaBeouf, The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal and Gracepoint’s Michael Pena) during this scene makes us loose all respect for them; so much so that when the final conflict arrives, we really don’t care if they live or die…it’s extremely difficult to emotionally invest in unsympathetic characters. In the end, Pitt, the new guy (Logan Lerman) and the tank itself are about the only things we have any kind of affinity for in the movie, and that really isn’t enough to justify shelling over a ten spot, two singles and a pair of quarters for (current ticket price in the OC). Is Fury a decent WWII flick? Sure. Is it worthy of inclusion into the War Movie Hall of Fame? Not even remotely. Let’s face it, without Pitt’s presence this movie would’ve tanked.