War Machine

War Machine is equal parts cynical military propaganda and Predator knock off.

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Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 1093: War Machine

Something I find fascinating is how an actor's journey differs wildly depending on when they break out. If you break out in a franchise when you're young, you'll likely try to expand your appeal and reach with some more "respectable" films like indies or well-reviewed dramas. But if you're an actor who's been working to make it into the big time for over a decade and you finally become a hot commodity, you might take every movie you're interested in. If you were one of the people wondering why middled aged actor Pedro Pascal was in every other movie last year...this is why. And if you became an action star overnight, like Alan Ritchson, you'll dive into every variation on the genre that made you a household name including a kiddo version for Amazon and a military sci-fi action flick for Netflix...that I genuinely despised. 

The Setup

Ritchson plays an unnamed Staff Sergeant who has the worst day of his life when all his platoon, minus him, is wiped out in a Taliban ambush, including his brother. Now hoping to achieve the dream his brother had for them, our Sergeant attends RASP to become an Army Ranger. But completing training takes a back seat when on their final mission, the would-be rangers encounter an other-worldly threat...

At this point in my movie viewing career, I try to give every movie a shot. I rarely watch trailers. I take critical consensus with a grain of salt. And I do my best to remove biases and view each movie on it's own terms. I also try to be upfront about my own viewing experience and how it can shade my appreciation for a movie including knowledge of a troubled production or enjoying the non-English original version of a film being remade in America.

I say all of this to say that me absolutely f***ing hating this movie, means something. 

It's not because this is a poorly made movie. Quite the opposite actually. There is an awful lot of skill and work put into this movie including solid acting across the board from a pretty diverse cast, solid action sequence staging and filming, and a great blend of practical action and special effects. So what's the problem? Well there's a lot actually. Let's start with a softball, and one you probably guess from the concept.

Cynical Military Propaganda

There's been extensive discussions and research done elsewhere, but it's pretty well known that if you're making a military movie in Hollywood, you'll be working with the Pentagon to get things like supplies and experts to support the film.

Which also means that including any element that makes the United States Military look bad is more than likely going to get cut.

I came into this movie knowing that and expecting that we'd hear and see a whole lot of USA military, we're the best, mindset.

What's so startling is how deeply the cynical military mindset is engrained in this movie's marrow.

Ritchson's character, and almost every character for that matter, are great examples. As part of this rigorous training, each of our potential Rangers is given a number. If you know how military's work, you understand why this is. You're meant both to think of yourself as part of a greater unit and machine vs. an individual and also get a little dehumanized so you don't operate outside of things like direct orders from superiors. 

By why doesn't he have a name? Or say his name ever?

A bib part of this movie model is bonding between soldiers. Where soldiers who perhaps don't see eye to eye find common ground and respect for one another by sharing about themselves or doing something selfless/impressive for the sake of the group.

Which is also set up as an eventuality, since the giant character flaw Ritchson demonstrates up until the encounter with the alien craft is an emotional barrier between himself and his fellow trainees. At some point we expect something like the Saving Private Ryan scene where Tom Hanks cuts through the tension between his men by revealing his job before the war. In this case, it would probably be Ritchson talking about his brother and maybe, just maybe including his name.

Nope. His brother was a soldier too, so all you really need to know is that he's dead.

And this stinks, because this character's perspective is easy to understand but also potentially lethal to the survival of this team. I can't imagine you want to bond with other soldiers when you feel like you failed your friends and your brother. But if they don't trust you or know you, it's going to be a lot harder for them to follow your lead or be inspired by your orders. 

Even before they encounter this other-worldly threat, he's told by his commanding officers that he needs to learn to lead to survive. Which he does in moments, but it keeps running into a conflicting idea of getting to save his brother like he failed to last time via a proxy (an injured soldier whom Ritchson constantly looks out for).

His only methods of leadership are just regurgitating propaganda about what makes Rangers special that may as well be taken from an absurd manifesto the group was founded on. The individual doesn't matter. The goal matters. Pain doesn't matter. The goal matters. Names, feelings, and horrific sights that haunt you in your sleep can be dealt with by diving straight into more and coming out the other side. Join the military and become just like Alan Ritchson. Become a cog in this meat-grinder. Embrace the pain.

Because apparently leadership doesn't involve creating bonds that encourage teamwork for more than a single scene it's all about overcoming human limits of pain and suffering. And brother, we've got a whole lot of pain for you.

Anti-Inspiration Torture Porn

As much disdain as I have for the military industrial complex, I want the best for soldiers. I want them to not fight unless absolutely necessary. I want them to lead comfortable lives and have the sacrifices they make, whether it's injuries (physical and mental), fairly compensated for the as long as they live.

But War Machine seems to hate its soldiers. 

Which sounds like it contradicts the "military propaganda" angle I was just talking about right? Not really.

The movie is upending the notion of soldiers being unstoppable bad-asses. They get hurt and killed just like anyone else would when facing a superior enemy. So maybe this requires the ingenuity, teamwork, and sacrifices of our soldiers to take this enemy down?

Nope!

Instead the movie relishes every soldier's death and injury like a firework that needs to be shown in excrutiating detail in a series of events that ultimately don't have that much influence on the plot. Their moments of ingenuity, teamwork and heroism, at best, will delay their death for a few minutes before this alien craft fires another impossible weapon at them. A collection of anti-payoffs that can only make the audience feel bad because it's playing every bit of soldier's suffering as part of the spectacle.

The platoon falling down the hill after an explosive attack isn't just a plot device that makes the squad's ultimate goal that much harder, it's also a chance to off a bunch of soldiers in gruesome ways and give others terrifying injuries that we literally zoom in on as they happen. For no other reason than to let you know that someone has died or will likely die or show a more drawn out dramatic death.

In a sequence that just followed half a dozen soldiers getting vaporized by an alien weapon in equally grusome fashion.

It turns all of these other soldiers into sacrifices so Jack Reacher can experience redemption and character growth. Growth which he never really demonstrates because of the lack of interpersonal connection I mentioned earlier.

This "soldier as cannon fodder" element, is also where the movie leans into traditional military propaganda, yet again. The message here is that "no matter the odds, and impossible obstacles, our soldiers find a way to keep fighting. No matter how many of their comrades die in horrific ways, the American fighting spirit doesn't die. Your individual survival means nothing when it comes to the survival of the nation."

I can see why the military didn't mind this movie, because whether conscious or not, this is how the military and nation views its soldiers. People to valorize, but rarely humanize or personalize. 

It's also wild to basically remake Predator while making it less interesting.

Oh This is Just Predator But More Expensive and Worse

I don't have a problem with riffs on famous/beloved movies. The surge in Die Hard riffs in the late eighties and early nineties are some of my favorite action cheese. But those movies hide those inspirations waaaaaaay better. 

Because outside of the first act, this movie more or less plays out exactly like Predator, with a lot of unnecessary complications and the elements that make the best Predator movies satisfying.

We have the technologically superior foe who has a scanning weapon that will turn red to lock on and fire at you. We have a beefy, more experienced boy, going up against said foe while trying to keep his squad alive and find a weakness in said superior foe. All of which is pushing towards a cathartic final showdown where our hero will prove himself the superior warrior ending.

Which isn't really what this movie sets up in the first act, it sets up that he needs to get over his trauma and learn to be a leader, but whatever. 

But even as a Predator movie rip off this sucks.

The original Predator was a masterstroke because it took the biggest action star of the decade and made him and his giant machine guns look small and pitiful. And just in case you didn't get the memo, they include an eighties action extravaganza to show you exactly how lethal this connection of men is to the average gun-wielding baddie. They tear through them like paper, pop off jokes and one-liners, and avoid anything resembling an injury. And all of that means nothing because they're up against a much more powerful enemy who can easily dodge a barrage of machine gun fire.

Or you can go the Prey route, and make the lead character's personal growth integral to the struggle against the Predator. Now instead of the ultimate bad-ass killing a Predator, an under-estimated warrior gets to prove her mettle by killing the being that killed everyone else.

War Machine seems primed for a blend since Ritchson does need to grow to be a better soldier and the enemy easily fend off traditional attacks, and Ritchson is also the biggest dude in action right now (in a more literal sense).

Regardless of which route you take, a lot of the fun and appeal of The Predator is the constant discovery of how outmatched our heroes are. Empty a clip into the woods and hit air. Seemingly trap a Predator and it gets out with its superior tech and takes out another member of your band.

And War Machine kills that sense of discovery right off the bat in two ways. The first is that our soldiers don't actually have weapons. Because this is a training exercise all of their weapons are glorified toys. Which makes sense for a training exercise.

What doesn't make sense is that they also have very real explosives that they are expected to use on this mission and do so right away.

And it does nothing.

While that is terrifying and leans into the whole "survival movie" or movie length chase that the best Terminator movies are based on, it also kills a lot of the possible tension. Because if a giant blast of C4 won't dent this thing, what's a mounted gun going to do? 

And while these soldiers are running for their lives without solid means of fighting back, their enemy keeps unlocking upgrades like a staged boss fight when it decides that the traditional homing death explosion laser isn't doing the trick. I get how this happened. The setup of this deadly robot is the most intriguing and unique element the film has, so you lean into it. But it also means that you're leaning into spectacle vs. scene construction or scripting. Making this movie way more expensive than it needs to be, while also overpowering your villain to the point of farce.

This leads to a lot of "what was the point of that?" sequences where someone will sacrifice their life, intentionally or not, to arm or use a weapon that they should know won't slow down or dent the enemy they're fighting.

I mentioned Terminator before and with good reason. Because even as B-level action movie made in 1984, James Cameron and company understood that building up our villain was way more impactful. First he see how easily it can kill your average human with pure strength. Then we see how easily it picks up weaponry. Then Kyle Reese shows up and pumps it full of shotgun shells before running away as fast as possible, because he's about to explain why that thing is called Terminator as the Terminator goes home to repair itself and then tears through a police station like a hot knife through butter.

And towards the very end, where Kyle and Sarah are on the ropes and have seemingly killed it with homemade explosives. It rises from the literal ashes of an exploded tanker in its most monstrous form, still staggering along trying to kill Sarah.

That's how you build-up a villain. And War Machine pulled that move in the first act and never gave its heroes anything comparable in between. 

Conclusion: An Infuriating Watch

I know why this movie is called War Machine. It's a bit of a pun on what these soldiers are up against (since it is a sentient machine designed for war) and it can also be a nickname/stand-in for our hero since he seems equally unkillable. And maybe just maybe you trick the algorithm a bit by naming your movie after a Marvel character that's appeared multiple times in the MCU.

But the title is more telling than that.

Calling a movie where soldiers are fed into a wood chipper of an experience where they're meant to fight, get hurt and die horribly and expected to keep on fighting and keep on moving in spite of all the obstacles is, unintentionally, one of the most accurate depictions of our military and our country's attitudes towards it's own soldiers.

Our soldiers are not people with names and experiences beyond the military or beyond war. They are numbers. Useful tools to push the narrative and objective forward.

They are fuel for the war machine.