2007 - THE KINGDOM, watchout Middle East terrorists here come the good guys.

A nice schizo action film.  The Kingdom starts out with a short history lesson about the United States government's screw ups over the many years in dealing with the Middle East all in the name of oil.  It puts the viewer in the mood for perhaps a fairly honest appraisal of yet another US foreign policy disaster.

However after that lecture,  we jump into the action. At an American housing compound built by an oil company,  terrorists set off a bomb.  This brings in the FBI's crack bomb investigation team.  They have to put together what happened and who did it.  Since this is a film directed by Peter Berg a man who apparently has to much iron in his diet, the violence commences.

The action scenes are well staged with the usual shaky camera style that is so popular these days.  The cast beginning with Jamie Foxx, Jason Batemen, Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner (in the role of the girl, because there always has to be a girl) is OK.

The film is ultimately a rather pointless mess.  It can't decide if it should be sympathetic to the situation in the Middle East or just another shoot em up.  Guess what prevails.

The film was written by Matthew Michael Carnahan  and runs 109 minutes.

2012 - BATTLESHIP, another U.S military vs space aliens epic

I will have to give the production team of Battleship credit, they actually managed to work in the Hasbro board game into the film and it wasn't entirely silly it was only sort of silly.  This is the second space aliens vs the military epic I sat through this weekend.

Against all odds and trapped behind a space alien force field the plucky crew of the John Paul Jones led by their hot head temporary captain take on some wacky alien gizmos that spin around and grind up ships with circular saw blades and blow stuff up with some kind of crazy depth charge bombs.

Compared to Battle: LA the other space alien epic I watched this weekend, this one has a higher budget and is better directed and written.  The cast is a bunch of young good looking actors and even manages to slip in a couple of hot women.  The film was targeted as a big summer release from Universal studios and was a mighty flop.  The whole concept behind the film was just too stupid.  At the very least with Battle: LA you knew that by the numbers film was a pack of cliches never to be taken seriously.

However with Battleship, the director Peter Berg who is a big fan of the United States military wants to make some statement about the "profession of arms" and the plight of the disabled veteran.  Apparently someone forgot to tell him this was a film based on a board game I was playing back in grade school with pencil and paper.

Battleship's other problem is the incredible two hour plus length of this film.  It just goes on and on from one action set piece to another.  The whole thing could have easily lost a half and hour during then editing of the film.

131 minutes, written by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber.