Oakes Fegley is Disney's latest breakout young talent. Having been thoroughly impressed by his wonderful performance in the remake of Pete's Dragon, I have decided to check out his filmography and keep up to date with his projects. Oakes isn't the only one, there's a few young stars I'm keeping track of. This is Fegley's first feature film, so I was looking forward to seeing it. While not perfect, the move for the most part is quite good. But it makes some boneheaded choices that cost a good review.
Fort Bliss is a contemporary war film that embraces the soldier and shows their lives outside of combat. We don't get much of those films anymore. The beautiful Michelle Monaghan plays a decorated American soldier who just got back from a 15 month stint in Afghanistan. She tries to rebuild her relationship with her young son (Oakes Fegley) who she has not seen for a large part of his life. Her son does not remember her at all. She tries to fight for custody while still dealing with the pressure of her military unit. The movie was going for a Kramer vs Kramer-meets-The Best Years of Our Lives kind of feel. All seemed to be going smooth.
She developed a relationship with a mechanic and that subplot is very generic. Not bad, but not great either. Watchable stuff. Her time spent with the unit is also dull. The movie really needed to focus on the rekindling relationship between mother-and-son. This is where the real emotion lies and where the vast majority of the originality is held. So these flaws diminish the film into a movie that is no more than good. Not bad by any means. If this is on TV, it's worth a watch. On Netflix? Check it out.
I'm getting ahead of myself now. She is assigned to go back to Afghanistan for a period of 9-15 months. She wants to stay with her son, but her personal pride of her profession has her thinking that maybe she should. An alternative needs to be in tact. But no! The very last scene, last for less than a minute had me so angry that is just wanted to punch my screen! The scene right before that was so good too. I developed a hatred for her character in just a few seconds and my my thumbs up for think instantly turned down. I know that this is a war movie and they didn't want to cop out with a cheesy ending, but...wait why not!? It wouldn't be a cheesy ending if you made it work! It pretty much took everything that the movie had been saying for the past two hours and threw it out the window! It made her one of the worst mother ever! Maybe I'm a little too "Brady Bunch" but family greatly outweighs profession.
Remake this soon and learn from the mistakes.
2/4
Fort Bliss is a contemporary war film that embraces the soldier and shows their lives outside of combat. We don't get much of those films anymore. The beautiful Michelle Monaghan plays a decorated American soldier who just got back from a 15 month stint in Afghanistan. She tries to rebuild her relationship with her young son (Oakes Fegley) who she has not seen for a large part of his life. Her son does not remember her at all. She tries to fight for custody while still dealing with the pressure of her military unit. The movie was going for a Kramer vs Kramer-meets-The Best Years of Our Lives kind of feel. All seemed to be going smooth.
She developed a relationship with a mechanic and that subplot is very generic. Not bad, but not great either. Watchable stuff. Her time spent with the unit is also dull. The movie really needed to focus on the rekindling relationship between mother-and-son. This is where the real emotion lies and where the vast majority of the originality is held. So these flaws diminish the film into a movie that is no more than good. Not bad by any means. If this is on TV, it's worth a watch. On Netflix? Check it out.
I'm getting ahead of myself now. She is assigned to go back to Afghanistan for a period of 9-15 months. She wants to stay with her son, but her personal pride of her profession has her thinking that maybe she should. An alternative needs to be in tact. But no! The very last scene, last for less than a minute had me so angry that is just wanted to punch my screen! The scene right before that was so good too. I developed a hatred for her character in just a few seconds and my my thumbs up for think instantly turned down. I know that this is a war movie and they didn't want to cop out with a cheesy ending, but...wait why not!? It wouldn't be a cheesy ending if you made it work! It pretty much took everything that the movie had been saying for the past two hours and threw it out the window! It made her one of the worst mother ever! Maybe I'm a little too "Brady Bunch" but family greatly outweighs profession.
Remake this soon and learn from the mistakes.
2/4