How to destroy a sequel

Jarhead II

Movie makers need to learn

pandalarve8 May 2016
This movie was bad on so many levels.

1. unrealistic, the "freedom fighters standing in mid open places, with 5 guns
pointing and hooting at them and they don't get hit, after like 100 bullets go past
them, and if they had missed at least they would hit the people behind with how
center clustered they stood. as well as standing in the middle of a hallway, no
cover. not hit once, not before you give the "guy we don't trust" a gun to prove
himself, then they drop like flies.

2. When the movie uses the name jar head 3... claiming to be a sort of sequel down
the genre.. At least follow the premise from the other movies. Jarhead 1, damn
good movie, you follow the protagonist, you get to experience what he feels and
how he perceived things, you are in the story, good job! Jarhead 2. Little worse
than the first but stile decent enough for entertainment, it follows somewhat the
lines of the original.. then you got this thing.... Just going thru all the action movie
stereotypes, just as if the director had a list in front of him that he had to check
every box on as he made the movie... At least the two first movies tried to be
realistic, opposed to just pure classical action movie setup, that no one wants
anymore.

3. The comic relief, the douche bag, and the black hype up guy, and the annoying
guy who are useless... WHY ALL THESE STEREOTYPES? seems like the
director, just check every box again...

4. The literal second the last guys die... the rescue comes in, nonchalantly, not even
trying to secure the area in case more enemies comes in... I mean, if the rescuers,
were so close, that the second the propane tank had exploded and the dust settled,
they could walk in... then one would expect they were within firring range to help
shoot right? or at least lob a grenade.... So poorly made, in terms of realism.

5.the plot was weak...

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 2/10
Horrid
mikek-6499030 August 2018
It's not often I turn a movie off and don't finish it, but I did with this one. How do
you make a military movie, but have absolutely no military guidance in the acting?
At about 20 minutes in when they do the training scenario, they fly past every
room without clearing them. Then Albright head shots the terrorist holding the
HVT without having his weapon shouldered properly or even looking through the
optics. That was enough to know this movie was all Hollywood and no military
accuracy.

Don't waste your time

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 4/10
The usual shooting gallery with corny bravado and odd found footage
gimmick
quincytheodore9 February 2016
Warning: Spoilers
It's originally a delight to see B-movie with more emphasis on realism of marine
life than merely blasting guns. Scott Adkins looks better in acting department too
as he plays the high rank officer and there's good effort to develop intense scene
from military part. However, it soon crumbles with poor Jason Bourne imitation
for shady opt, uncomfortable missed machismo and a particularly strange silly man
of supporting character.

The first misfit comes in the form of Blake, the documentary guy. He sticks out
like a sore thumb in every scene, throwing needless jokes and ruining the high
octane sequence. If there is a need for comic relief, then it has to be done with
more finesse and less unsavory method. The film gives almost half of its runtime to
create a sense of dread, yet this nagging character singlehandedly ruins it, even
more so when the other actors trying to deliver a more serious performance.

Scott Adkins is more comfortable here, he has good mentor-student relationship

with Albright (Charlie Weber), the protagonist. The rest of the squad are decent as
well. Then, it suddenly introduces a tough female character who may or may not
be a spy, in Top Gun-esque bantering. There's also mandatory nationalism angle,
which is not entirely bad, but seems shoehorned in as emotional bait.

After halfway point the movie pushes the shooting to the maximum volume,
gunning for most bullets shot per minute. It's the usual gunslinger military stuff,
which is admittedly expected. Nothing too grand, although there are some oddities
like people running away from covers and even though Scott Adkins is here, this is
not martial art movie, so those expecting intricate hand-to-hand combat might be
disappointed.

"Jarhead 3" is the expected cinematic rendition of soldiers filled with testosterone
and gunpowder, and also unfortunately a few out-of-elements ridiculous antics.
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Nothing like Jarhead the original.
daerday18 June 2016
So pretty much this movie was nothing but action... I forced myself to watch
Jarhead 3... First Jarhead movie was great, well written funny yet serious. The
second one was too serious and stole lines from movies like V for Vendetta. The
3rd one they just said screw it to a story and just had non stop fighting for 2 hours
straight. Made me think of wanting to make a movie and title is the third
installment then make it just after the intro nothing but action to confused the
people and end the movie with the hero saying some sly line like "Your logic is
flawed murdering innocent people. You are not a hero to your people but a
murder." then the villain saying "I see my error of my ways I surrender." right in
the middle of a tense action scene.

The guns seemed to have unlimited ammo, and I realized the blonde girl was most
likely CIA since she knew how to shoot right from the get go.

I would never consider this movie to anyone I know to save them 2 hours of their
life... Sad part is I watched Jarhead 2 and 3 which had nothing to do with the
original plot of Jarhead which was actually written by a man who spent time in
Iraq during desert storm/desert shield.
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An Okay serious movie ruined by a clown!!
LogicIsEverything29 January 2016
I often wondered why some actually not bad or even serious movies would insert a
totally unnecessary cast, a comic-relief like jerk in the screenplays to completely
ridicule and ruin them. The worst outcome is putting such clown figures in an
action movie. We had seen Bruce Lee's martial art Kung-Fu movies stupidly
arranged such totally unnecessary and inappropriate role and degenerated those
supposedly suspenseful action movies into not quite serious enough ones. This
"Jarhed 3" was another victim by such stupid arrangement in its screenplay,
allowing a totally unnecessary character, Blake, played by the annoying Filipino
American, Dante Basco, to mess up with and almost ruined it soon as this jerk-like
guy holding a camcorder, appeared on the screen.

I am not so sure about the connections between the screenplay writer(s), the
director, or even the executive producer(s) with Dante Basco, but one thing I could
definitely assure is this sore-thumb like character completely torpedoed this, by
general standard, not too bad, albeit quite serious action TV movie. Of course,
there are many flaws and loopholes inherited from the screenplay's scenario and
plot, but except this jerk-like stand-alone Blake character, all the other players did
their jobs quite seriously. The clown character in a serious U.S. Embassy is not just
possible but unthinkable, that stupid arrangement simply and totally ruined the
believability of this movie, even there were many settings, furniture, bullet-proof
windows and glasses were so vividly and realistically destroyed.

The Chinese got an old saying to describe such inappropriate careless arrangement
that doomed the outcome: "A whole well-prepared pot of porridge is ruin by just
one piece of small rat dropping", Blake/Dante Basco, is indeed that piece of rat
dropping.
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 3/10
If you like 40 minute gun battles this film is for you
latinfineart9 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
I do not know where to start to explain how poor this film was. They did have a
few good actors in it and it could have been a halfway decent film had the director
had any idea what he was doing. Or had it been supplied with a good script. Or had
the gun battle not been so incredibly long and nonstop. There basically no story
here, it was just 90,000 bullets. If you like that, then I recommend this film, if not
take a pass
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 6/10
Worth watching and is pretty entertaining. A low budget 13 Hours that is
worth your time.
cosmo_tiger4 June 2016
"Sometimes being a good Marine means coming in last." Evan Albright (Weber)
has just arrived for his new assignment guarding an American Embassy located in
the Kingdom. His ego and attitude don't endear him to his fellow soldiers or
commanders. When someone comes into the building he is guarding and things
erupt outside everything changes. Now, him and the little group of guards must not
only protect those inside the building, but the entire Embassy itself. This is a movie
that tried so hard to be like 13 Hours, and actually wasn't terrible. Considering the
budget restraints this movie had this was actually pretty decent and worth
watching. It never became overly cheesy or laughable even though it came close a
few times. This is becoming one of the best B action movie series' and it didn't try
to do too much, which actually helped the movie. This is nothing comparable to 13
Hours, but for what it was it was entertaining and very watchable. Overall, worth
watching and is pretty entertaining. A low budget 13 Hours that is worth your time.
I give this a B.
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80s meets modern Warmovie
quasides4 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
It could have been an 80s Movie. We have our loose Gun/Action Hero, we have
our blond hottie that will run around with a gun and fihgt like the bigguys and we
have our Villain running around always angry.

The acting is between mediocre acceptable and bad but not awful. The technical
aspects are partly not even bad. Seem like there was some serious training
involved.

Sadly all that seems to be forgotten when it comes to the actual gunbattles. At least
they change sometimes a magazine but it is still those endless rapidfire gunbattles
with 30 round mags that hold 200 bullets.

And while the good guys got easy overrun in an heavyguarded and well defended
Embassy and die like flys, at the end it turns around. While having close to no
cover, outgunned, out manned the terrorists drop like flys.

So the action part is 80s style, but still try to be serious like a modern Warmovie,
trys but fails to be realistic.

It even has some slightly critic undertone about politics and agenda of the
government, same time it ends up in a bug hurra marines are the best. And of
course our Loose Gun turns out to be the superhero that saves the day...

All in all a weird mixture, not really entertaining but also not too boring,
something you shouldn't think when you see it and you wont after you did.
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 3/10
Scott Adkins fans prepare to be (mostly) disappointed.
ivanaaaaaaaaa1 March 2020
Are you here for Scott Adkins? Prepare to be disappointed. This isn't his usual bad,
B movie with a payoff in the shape of some glorious ass whupping. There are zero
kicks or punches thrown by Scott in this movie - those with a keen eye for detail
should know something is off as soon as he shows up wearing well-fitted jeans
(which do, ahem, fit him very well). Also, Scott is not the main character, so don't
expect too much screen time with him.

The obnoxious, pretentious, cliche, 18 year old douchebag dialogue is terrible. The
Reese Witherspoon lookalike with a hairdo that seems to be held together by an
entire can of hairspray is annoying and just plain awful. (Her IMDB bio boasts of
the famous acting coaches she's worked with ((I stopped reading after the first few
rows)) - I hope she kept the receipts cause she should go get her money back.) And
the camcorder guy? Don't even get me started on him.

As for all the firefights.. Pretty unrealistic scenarios made worse by details like the
sound of shooting still going even after the person visibly stopped shooting.

Other than a few minutes of SA in tight jeans and the soothing voice of the
AllState guy (also a side character), this movie is pretty awful. (It's really a 2/10, I
gave an extra star for the former.) If you're a completionist, give it a watch. If
you're looking for a good B movie, this isn't it - go watch something like
Avengement instead. <3
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 2/10
Action, period.
crahar6 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
If you're looking for an action movie with a "13 Hours" story line, decent acting, a
whole lot of gunfire, and almost no realism, this could be your movie. Thousands
of rounds fired and the only person I ever saw change a magazine was the female
(CIA?). The main character must have had one of those new "endless magazines"
because he fired hundreds of rounds and never had to reload. The terrorists
reminded me of Storm Troopers, maybe that's where the Empire has been
recruiting. They couldn't hit the side of a building from 10 feet away. Meanwhile,
the good guys took out a bad guy or two, every time they came out of cover, stood
in the middle of the doorway or street, and returned fire. And I'm not even going to
talk about the annoying funny man that all the other reviews have already shamed.
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 4/10
This film made me want to join the Isis
anthonyf9424 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Horrid, stereotypical war movie about Marines against Isis. Beyond the fact taht
the acting is poor, dialogues mechanical, plot weak, also worse than the previous
chapter, there's the superficial and moralistic representation both of american
soldiers and Isis. The psychology of the characters isn't deepened and the
sociological or political reasons of terrorism are treated as familiar revenges or
personal madness. As in Jarhead 2, all the (bad) story is resolved in a moralistic
final speech of individual welfare. The first "Jarhead" movie is the only good to
watch, the others are poor commercial products: I'm scared by the imminent
arriving of the fourth chapter.
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 7/10
Good military action movie
phanthinga21 September 2017
You don't have to be a fan of Jarhead series to enjoy Jarhead 3: The Siege.Directed
by William Kaufman a good but underrated action movie director starring Charlie
Weber as the lead role and Scott Adkins as the supporting role but still awesome
nonetheless.The acting is fine for the most part but when it come to action scene if
you familiar with William works you know how good it is.The gun fight is so
intense and bloody that guarantee keep you on the edge of your seat.
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 7/10
Really Good ACTION movie. Ignore haters!
smilegel3 February 2017
I really enjoyed it. I wanted action with some back up story and acceptable acting.
I got that and more. Acting was pretty good, with some good actors. A ton of
nonstop action and a good story and kept me on the edge. I think some wanna-be
soldiers expected absolute perfection and that just does not exist.

Action 10/10. Directing: 7/10. Acting: 7/10. Script: 7:10.

Would like to watch more movies like this.

--- I got nothing else to add. Just watch the movie! Never understood all the
amateurs whose reviews consist of "trailer" type scenario. Why?! If I wanted to
know more about the movie, I can watch the trailer and not read it!
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 7/10
Ignore the haters! Worth your time.
thomahal18 April 2019
Like the title on my review. This is a good action flick. Don't compare it with 13
Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, or the first Jarhead. Yes. There are some
never ending magazines, you know those 30 rounds containing a 100 or more. I
would guess a few Marines would coment on a lot going on here. But. To knock of
some time, watching decent action movie it's worth it. The acting is decent i would
say. It's worth watching, is all i'm saying.
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 6/10
Not Exactly the Worst
stanrogersmith21 June 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I managed to watch the whole movie without too many guffaws. But there were
some. Gotta love the beginning with the Marine Corps "boot camp" montage to
show the lead character going through his paces so that later we have the backstory
that he's a bonafide jarhead and ready to lock and load. Upon arrival at "The
Kingdom" Corporal Jarhead is picked up at the airport by a soon to be best buddy
jarhead. Who just happens to let his British accent slip out a little too much. After
Cpl Jarhead gets introduced to his company of other jarheads he then gets to meet
Adkins, another Brit passing off as an American jarhead. I knew going in that if
you're gonna see Adkins in a flick, be prepared for a C-list presentation. Its not that
he's a bad actor. Its just that he's not really a good one. So, more obligatory scenes
of Cpl Jarhead trying to familiarize himself with his duties, a little sexual tension
with the cute little blonde "secretary", who we later realize is really a CIA covert
operative, albeit a British one (she's a Brit too and her accent can be noticed). Then
comes Cpl Jarhead's revelation that the embassy is being cased by an ISIS lunatic
but nobody believes him. So you know what that means right? Yep, 5 minutes later
the dude who Cpl Jarhead is onto leads an all out assault and siege on the embassy.
From this point on its just one long firefight until the end. Bullets flying, RPGs
launching, bodies dropping, snipers sniping, etc. etc. The one major drawback, and
this has been mentioned by other reviews and I'm in total agreement with them, is
that the douchebag Filipino-American really is horrible. The inclusion of that
character almost ruins the film. Anyhow, it comes down to a last-stand situation
with the cavalry trying to get there to save them. The cavalry arrives but right as
Cpl Jarhead ignites a propane tank to blow to smithereens the head ISIS
douchebag. Hoo-Rah! USA! USA! USA!
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 8/10
NEW FRIENDSHIPS ARE BETTER THAN NEW SHOES
nogodnomasters4 May 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This film doesn't seem to be connected to the other two and I don't believe they
even used the disparaging term "Jarhead." Evan Albright (Charlie Weber) a lone
wolf hero type, is assigned a gravy job at a US embassy in an unnamed Middle
East country that has ISIS up north. In the first 30 minutes Albright (what's in a
name) learns there is no "I" in team, the blond security agent (Sasha Jackson) that
comes on to him, doesn't date marines; the ambassador (Stephen Hogan) doesn't
have a personality; and his boss Gunny Raines (Scott Adkins) is a stickler to the
chain of command. Albright believes an attack is imminent and no one believes
him. At about 30 minutes into the film, it hits the fan and the gun fire doesn't let up
until the end of the film.

This was a fairly formula film with limited unimportant twists. Dennis Haysbert
plays a major in this film, a demotion from his normal general or colonel rank. The
film takes time to let us know the characters before the over blown shoot out
occurs. The film also tosses in some preachy lines of "us vs them" that were a bit
corny, but has appeal to those attracted to this type of action film. Albright messes
up in one scene and does his Richard Gere " An Officer and a Gentleman "
breakdown impersonation, repeating much of the same lines... "I got no where else
to go." Groan. Seriously Chad? Those were the best lines you could come up with?

However looking beyond the film's short comings, it was a high action, heart
pumping thriller with characters.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.