Age of Heroes

I am always up for a good World War II "men on a mission" movie. Emphasis on "good". This British production is quite lacking in a number of areas that at the end make the movie overall unsatisfying. The first flaw is the budget. I realize that this didn't have a Hollywood budget, and I did see that the production squeezed every last penny they had, but much of the movie looks kind of skimpy. But the movie could still have worked had it not been for the next problem - much of the movie is not exciting. After the opening action sequence, it takes forever for the next true action scene to come along. And the footage between is not very interesting - it's lacking a sense of humor, colorful characters, and original situations. Things do pick up a little in the second half of the movie due to some nice scenery and some okay action, but this material is too little and too late. While the movie isn't actively bad, it's more often than not bland, and even Brits in the audience with an interest in World War II will likely grow weary with the movie some time before the end credits start rolling.

In the fall of 2010, I spent a short time on the set of an independent film called "The Boarder," which was being shot in rural Nebraska. And one thing that I did learn while mingling amongst the technicians and actors was that even in something as aesthetically-driven as a motion picture, and with something passionate as a subject matter, it is still entirely possible for things to sour up and become impersonal. Movie-making is not easy, and the stress, I'm afraid, can wear out the artistic drive in some of us, especially if it's an early endeavor. That very well may have been the case, I'm afraid to say, with Adrian Vitoria's "Age of Heroes."

Again, it's hard to imagine a film based on a true story to be passionless and impersonal, but that is the case here. "Age of Heroes" is loosely based on a World War II British commando unit's mission to garner Germany intelligence. The particular mission was drawn up by Ian Fleming, who would later go on to write the James Bond novel series. So a story about men who risked and gave their lives, even in a shoestring budget film like this, is hard to imagine as soulless. But it is.

The way this movie is filmed, acted, scored, and executed, it's as if the filmmakers simply pulled the story out of a box full of potential stories and decided to roll along with it. Because it was their job, not because they particularly wanted to. Filming the battle scenes in this movie must have been very difficult, and unfortunately, the stress the directors and technicians had on them is apparent. It can be felt, and as a result, the scenes, meant to be white-hot, have a sort of staged, phony feeling to them.

There are worthy actors in the movie, headed by Sean Bean, but not one of them as a real part to act. What little personality they have is drawn straight out of previous war pictures. The key example is a tough commando sergeant, played with zest by William Houston; really just a pale imitation of the much-more-impressive gunnery sergeant from Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" back in 1987.

If the film can be redeemed, it is in that it does not appear to aim particularly high. It doesn't have a big goal, so it doesn't accomplish much, and the failure isn't quite as compounding as it otherwise might have been. And a brisk 94 minutes, "Age of Heroes" was already over by the time I was really starting to grow bored.

It's a solid action flick for sure - nothing terribly new, but it does good work with the WW2 formula that other war flicks have used before.

There is no one flaw I can point to in this film as my reason for giving it a 7, but quite honestly, the thought that stayed in my mind as I watched it was that this film while good, had the potential to be great.

It falls short. The acting and character development is intriguing, but lacks the depth of characters in films like Inglorious Basterds.

It has a fun story, but a little more detail could have may the commando training subplot as well as the rest of the movie so much more.

The beginning is great, but leaves many scenes to the imagination of the viewer. You almost have to wonder if the film was gutted in order to shorten the running time to its fairly short hour and a half.

Like I said, it's good - but it could have been great.

I'm not understanding all the negativity in the user reviews about this film. Sure, Sean Bean is not the world's greatest actor, but he did a fine job in this role. True, the movie shared some themes found in other WWII movies, but how can that possibly be avoided in this day and age?

The movie does lack moments of depth--for example the training camp in Scotland shows lots of yelling and little else. However, contrary to previous opinions, the mission is quite clearly explained prior to the team undertaking it--hence the need for the non-commando "specialist" who is brought along to ensure success.

This movie was entertaining, moves at a brisk pace (although too brisk in some places), and has fun moments combined with tragic and sad. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I found it enjoyable, and while not Academy Award material, I would recommend that anyone who likes Action/War movies takes a look.

This is indeed a very boring and predictable copycatting movie, a "The Dirty Dozen", "The Guns of Navarone", "The Heroes of Telemark (yeah, more like this one copycatted)", and "Where Eagles Dare (copycatted some from this one too) British wannabe but a disastrous one with very weak script and bad casting job. Guys became commandos in this movie were just a bunch of hot-head yoyos who were so easily to cry, yell, shout... and their physical conditions (one of the guy was so skinny) to carry out a dubious mission were also very bad and weak, absolutely unqualified for a tough and dangerous mission. Went to the severe Scandinavian weather and terrain with poor preparation, inappropriate winter gears, logistics, fighting skills.

There was nothing special of their mission, because it's so vague, not Nazi's underground heavy water or atomic bomb development factories. The storyline was just a very thin straight line, so predictable and so boring. The movie just used Sean Bean to fool us to watch it, but the weak screenplay simply didn't give him anything to look great or even good. This is a very bad imitation of those great war movies but failed from the very beginning, never took off in the air 50 feet high and immediately crashed. Watching it was like chewing the same gum over and over for two hours.