If you like lightning tracers, mass killing, no plot, and two repetitive hours of runtime, then this is your piece of meat. Of course it helps if you're a teenage boy with no knowledge of real warfare or death. Frankly the general outlines made me think of the cowboy flicks of my youth, where cavalry killed massed indians, no one cried out in agony or even bled, and the good, Bible-carrying guys always won. The battlefield logic here must have been hatched in somebody's cowboy movie dream, where the enemy simply crowds together waiting to be mowed down. On the other hand, at least this 2014 version doesn't prettify the guys or their battle-field surroundings, so maybe there's some progress in teen entertainment after all. But for those who take the two-hours as mere entertainment, remember that at a subliminal level you're being prepared for future wars, where good guys always win, death is quiet, heroes are made, and mass killing really isn't so bad after all. Regrettably that's apparent here, even if the visuals are colofully spectacular. Anyway, for this now 81-year old, it looks like few things change after all, especially in Hollywood.
