There is a great, dramatic story here, but it’s buried in such a melodramatic and overwrought story that I was actually rolling my eyes and snorting after a while.

You know what’s going to happen to the characters since everything is telegraphed in the first half hour. It follows just about every cliche so you know that each early scene was a set-up to a predictable outcome.

This hits you on the head with the emotional scenes and, yes, the patriotic scenes. If this were an American Muppet movie, Sam the Eagle would pop up and say “at times like this, I’m proud to be an American” about a dozen times. Also, I haven’t seen so many grown men burst into tears this often, This is not a subtle movie.

The cast do what they can to ground this movie and there are some great (and not great) special effects. That’s as much upside as I can come up with.