Jarhead, the 2005 war film from director
Sam Mendes, is an unlikely movie to build a franchise from. The reception was
mediocre, the action was nonexistent as intentional commentary on the state of
modern warfare, and there was little opportunity for significant characters to
return. Thematically, the sequels don’t even belong in the same category, much
less carrying the same title. They get away with this by carrying over a
supporting character and turning the franchise into mindless action. While it
may not be cut from the same cloth as Jarhead,
it is rather predictable for a straight-to-video sequel.
Like the Behind Enemy Lines franchise, Jarhead 3 merely gives us a new
protagonist and situation for them to be thrown into. This time around it is
Marine Corporal Even Albright (Charlie Weber), and he is sent to a U.S. embassy in the Middle
East where an attack by an extreme militant group threatens the
safety of all inside. If this premise sounds strikingly similar to Michael Bay ’s
Benghazi
When Albright
first arrives at the embassy, he struggles to learn that he must rely on his fellow
marines in order to succeed. Ironically, it all ends up falling on his
shoulders to save the American ambassador when the attacks disable their
defenses. Despite throwing in a few random moments of patriotic mumbo-jumbo,
the film quickly devolves into outrageous action more likely to be seen in a
bad ‘80s film than in actual combat. Though the stakes are raised by the loss
of characters along the way, most of them are so generic that it makes little
difference and has no emotional impact.
Leading up to
the action is an introduction to the cookie-cutter characters, many of which
will be sacrificed along the way. Albright’s superior is the tough Gunny Raines
(Scott Adkins), only distinguishable by the C-list actor hired to play him, as
well as Major Lincoln (Dennis Haysbert), a mostly absent character used as a
thin connection to the original film. There is also the arrogant ambassador
(Stephen Hogan) who ignores warnings of the attack at the peril of the embassy,
pointless eye candy casting (Sasha Jackson), and an obnoxious documentary
filmmaker (Dante Basco) providing bad found-footage perspectives and worse
comedic relief.
Jarhead 3 tries to be both entertaining
and patriotically accurate, though these two things are in constant conflict
with each other. At times it succeeds at one or the other, but never both at
the same time. More often than not, it is unsuccessful at both. The Blu-ray
special features include a making-of featurette, as well as two additional ways
to view the film. The combo pack comes with a DVD copy and a Digital HD
code.
Entertainment Value:
5.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 4.5/10
Historical
Significance: 3/10
Special Features: 2/10
No comments:
Post a Comment