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It's a furiously macho saga scripted by the screenwriter of 300 and starring real Navy SEALS, those always-get-their-man men of mystery.
Fighting is a learned skill; so is acting. And the SEAL stars are plausible only when on maneuvers - performing as their own stunt doubles.
When the bullets are flying, Act of Valor is undeniably tense and thrilling.
I don't know what to make of Act of Valor. It's like reviewing a recruiting poster.
The special ops missions are pretty amazing, but the SEALS as dramatic characters are under-developed.
The bad guys, who specialize in funny beards, funny accents, and shaved heads, would feel right at home in an Austin Powers movie.
May have you longing for an old-fashioned era of 'square' propaganda, when it wouldn't have been considered a cool recruitment strategy to acknowledge that U.S. troops use constant profanity and splatter opponent's brains against the wall.
Made me yearn for the nuanced screenwriting of Battleship, the moderate politics of Transformers 3 and the versatility and range of Sam Worthington and Taylor Kitsch.
Not so much a war movie as a tribute to the Commandos known as the SEALs, and to their bonds forged in battle, it's a sombre affair, immersing us in the culture of these specially trained soldiers. Indeed, the cast are made up of genuine SEAL team members
If you like Act of Valor you may as well abandon drama for porn, because you don't like how the sex scenes feel fake.
Since when did 'having the uniform at home' qualify as the only pre-requisite for someone's employment? If that has indeed become the case, you can look forward to my imminent casting in Easter Bunny: Origins.
Let's get this clear right now: 'Act of Valor' is not, in many ways, a superior film. But it's a unique movie, and despite some flaws, it is full of action for audiences who want just that.
Directors Waugh and McCoy have obviously been to the Tony Scott school of sunset cinematography. Every other frame of this dawning drama has helicopters, surfboards, speedboats and submarines emblazoned with sparkling twilight.
Act of Valour might work as a recruiting poster for impressionable teenagers, but those who bravely serve in the armed forces deserve a better tribute that the naïve, sub-Team America nonsense served up here.
I guess they had to be realistic in order to make up for the dialogue, the acting, the special effects, the mawkishness, the closeted homoeroticism, the jingoism...
A movie so hawkish and gung-ho that it makes John Wayne's The Green Berets look unpatriotic and Top Gun seem positively pinko.
A distasteful and foolish film, a recruiting poster that might well carry the slogan "Join the Navy, Travel the World and Kill People".
Without the skills of some big-name actors, the type whose magnetism has drawn generations of cinema-goers into cinemas, it's all curiously empty and uninvolving.
Act Of Valor essentially marries platitude with attitude, veering from the realms of wholesome all-American family life to bullets-raging battle scenes.
It's like the game Call Of Duty, with worse acting and writing.
In the 1980s, Top Gun reportedly sent young men rushing to join the military; this hilariously bad film is going to get them clamouring to join the Jon Stewart Appreciation Society.
One can forgive the political simplicity and stilted performances, much less excusable is the unexciting plot, run-of-the-mill action and non-existent characterization.
The film is almost unashamedly a recruitment video for future Seals, but let's hope possession of a PlayStation 3 doesn't become the sole condition for enrolling.
Operates on more levels than Call of Combat IV: Jihadi Headshot, all of them despair-inducing.
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