http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234548/

Wow this film had such potential. A great cast, and an intriguing plot with lots of places to go. Problem is the film really doesn't go anywhere. It starts off vaguely well, who doesn't like slapstick humor? It goes downhill pretty fast though. I did love the cast though, Ewan Mcgregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey are all great in their own ways. They add great character and life to a lifeless film. The first problem is the plot. It is set up pretty early on and we get a good introduction to the 2 main characters. From there though they wander into the desert, Clooney displays some powers, and they get kidnapped and various other situations occur. Most of the interesting parts of the film are told in the form of flashbacks. When the film can't figure out where to go with it's plot it throws in a flashback to explain why we should give a crap. In between the flashbacks the characters wander a bit more, get lost in the desert and the film tries to make these more watchable by making them funny. I really mean try, this film really wants to be funny. Not in a clever way, this is not an intelligent political satire or a dark comedy. This would be fine if the funny parts of the movie were funny in the slightest. Most of them fall flat or make another jedi joke that made me chuckle at first since Ewan Mcgregor was in the star wars prequels. Problem is the film uses that running joke and tries to convince itself that it is funny or worth repeating throughout the film. Running jokes are tough to do, they either seem too repetitive or are used too sparingly to be called running jokes. Though I did like the scene where Clooney accidently hits a guy with his truck, hey that was a running joke because the guy was running and it was made into a joke! Get it? Oh man I am so funny I spray blood from every orifice.

That is pretty much what the film does with it's comedy. Heck the Star wars joke was made in the first 20 minutes of the film in the form of narraration, but the word jedi was never used. That was kinda clever, but then it gets used over and over again as if the film thinks we are too stupid to get it. Aside from my annoyance with that joke the humor can be funny. The truck part I mentioned earlier was chuckle worthy, and some of the hippie military parts where Jeff Bridges plays a parody of himself are kinda funny. Other than that though the film falls pretty flat. The actors try to make it better, and they are all good but the film itself isn't good enough. It isn't clever enough to be a satire and too silly to be much more than an absurd and occasionally funny anti war film. It also tries to have a message, which actually works pretty well since the LSD scene is not as far fetched as it seems. The government did indeed do experiments that bordered on insane, some also used LSD. This film could have run with that angle. Political satire is always good when done well. All the characters had potential for the film to be good. But overall I don't recommend it. The backstory may be entertaining and the cast solid, but the rest is just mindless and silly wandering in the desert. Not much interesting really happens. The message may be good and the backstory around it interesting enough, but the film just isn't consistant enough. Shame too, I was really hoping this would be good. It isn't bad though, don't think I hate everything about it. I just think it could have been much more.

Overall I give it a 6 out of 10.