“Act of Valor”: Courage…Loyalty…Honor…EXPLOSIONS!!!!

Vince Mancini over at FilmDrunk summed up the trailer for Act of Valor best when he said that it looked like “a 90-minute military recruitment film”, and I have to agree.

The movie is a war/action film, but instead of using real actors, they use active duty Navy SEALs. That’s nice, I guess. The trailer also tells us that while the story isn’t real, the weapons and stuff are. The film tells the story of a group of SEALs who are trying to rescue someone (or something, I can’t really tell what) and then they stumble on something dangerous. Who cares about plot anyway, LET’S BLOW STUFF UP! AND JUMP OUT OF PLANES! AND SING SNOW PATROL SONGS!

I’m not trying to mock the military here, and I don’t really want to get into any debates or anything. While I’m sure the SEALs do a lot to serve the USA, this movie just seems made for an audience that loves playing those war video games. The plot takes a backseat to explosions and over-dramatized truisms. I admit, the movie looks pretty (filming techniques, lighting, camerawork), but it almost seems like someone at Relativity said, “Hey! Let’s make a movie out of Call of Duty. It’ll be just like the game, except we can…I don’t know. But let’s make that happen.”

In fact, I’m wondering if this movie is just a small part of a bigger picture, oh, say, a tie-in for a video game. They wouldn’t do that, right? I think I’ll check the trailer and–

Yep. There it is. “PLAY BATTLEFIELD 3 BEFORE IT HIS STORES! and oh yeah see that one war movie too.”

Act of Valor hits theaters on February 17th. *gratuitous explosion*