Review of Act of Valor (2012) by Gene — 25 Feb 2012

As other reviewers already pointed out, the acting is a little wooden and the villians are (almost) as one dimensional as your average James Bond villian, but the overall package is so novel that it really shouldn't be an issue.

As far as the acting goes, it got the job done and I wouldn't say it's any worse than the acting of some 80's action heroes from Belgium or Austria. The villians don't get much screentime outside of the scenes where they're mostly twirling their moustaches and being all-around horrible people, but the few lines of dialogue they have at least hint at something deeper, it's really not explored to any degree, but it at least partially adds a fraction of a third dimension.

Finally, the novelty of the movie is that this really isn't some kind of Expandables or Magnificent 7, no egos, nobody makes stupid decisions to move the story forward, nobody running off on their own to be a hero.

This movie is really a celebration of proper teamwork and good preparation, I don't think I've enjoyed the firefights in any movie more than I enjoyed the ones in Act of Valor.