War Machine Review: 4 Ups & 5 Downs

3. There's A Surprising Lack Of Action

Three Kings proved that war satires don't need to lack in the action stakes, yet War Machine is sadly pretty malnourished when it comes to set-pieces.

There's actually zero action in the first two acts, and though the final reel does feature a squad of soldiers on maneuvers, it's pretty benign fare, shot anonymously and lacking any visual flair at all.

It's particularly frustrating as a pretty penny has clearly been spent on the production, which even flew real choppers in as opposed to Hollywood's usual deference towards bad CGI ones, yet there's absolutely nothing else remarkable about this sequence.