Navy Seals

Navy Seals (1990)

Runtime: 113 minutes

Directed by: Lewis Teague

Starring: (Unfortunately, these days) Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn, Joanne Whalley, Bill Paxton

From: Orion

Here’s a movie best known these days for being scorned in Clerks as being “intellectually devoid” and starring a guy best known these days for… well, being a warlock, I suppose. Remember back in March where his loony act was actually popular? That certainly died down after his first-ever stage show bombed and now I’m sure most people don’t give a damn about it or his persona.

As for this movie, it’s pretty much average in every which way. It’s not awful, but it’s definitely no The Expendables, for example. It’s a standard tale where you get to see the title characters go through some missions that deal with some damn extremists Lebanese religious zealots going wild with some Stinger missiles that they illegally acquired. A female reporter (Whalley) gets involved too. Various machinations go on, stuff happens, and of course there are moments where members of the team argue with each other. Trust me, the plot isn’t really worth discussing in detail.

Instead, I’ll mention that the movie is what you’d call “intellectually devoid”… although, you could also say the same about some of the films that Kevin Smith has made, but that’s another topic for another day. There are some stupid moments, where some characters really should have died, but somehow they avoid death. It’s intelligence-insulting, yet I laughed at the same time, so there’s that.

Speaking of laugh, there's this scene, which comes dangerously close to being like that beach volleyball scene from Top Gun. It's the guys golfing, mainly either shirtless or wearing short bright shorts in colors like pink and purple! Talk about homoerotic. And yeah, the Bon Jovi-esque band doing that horrible cover... it's actually Bon Jovi! Not their best song, that's for sure.

As for the lead star, he’s childish and immature, a hothead, wakes up from a bender face-down on the beach, runs after his towed car while riding a bicycle (!) and catches up to it (!!), shoots his mouth off, jumps from a Jeep off of a bridge into the water to avoid a wedding… so in other words, just like real life for The Warlock!

So, sorry for not saying much about this movie, but it’s not really worthy of a prolonged discussion unless you want to rip on all of the dumb moments. It's just a movie you shouldn't take seriously; at least you get to see some of what the SEALs apparently do. It's nice they get some props (especially considering that some of them were the ones that took out bin Laden) but I'm sure a documentary would do a better job of showing what they're all about.

I'll be back on Monday night with a new review.