Spoiler Alert. This was a poor movie. The plot device of a mission being necessary to take out a super long range, German artillery piece (The "V3") sitting out in the open, in broad daylight, apparently totally immobile, and with the allies having 95% air supremacy in France at that time of the war, is absurd. Btw, Germany fielded such a cannon called "The Paris Gun" 25 years before in WWI. So, the concept was not new, secret or that dramatically effective - especially when compared to German rockets (V1) and missiles (V2) and jet fighter planes available at the time.Besides the WWI Paris gun idea (range about 75 mi.), this is also a take-off on the WWII-era rail guns the Germans used with some effect near Leningrad (more of a giant 600mm and 800mm siege mortars) and Sevastopol ('42), and at certain Belgian fortresses in 1940. They also had a giant gun named "Anzio Annie" that bombarded allied forces in Anzio, Italy region. All these guns had one thing in common: they were used while mounted on giant rail cars to allow them to withdraw into mountain-embedded rail tunnels when not firing, so as to be somewhat protected from allied air supremacy. (Though this wasn't a factor early in Russia since Germans had air control.) Such guns are marginally effective due to the need to be able to see where the shots were landing, unless, in case of Paris gun or Leningrad siege, the target area was general and broad. Even then, the amount of steel used in making these guns (250 ((or five Tiger tanks)), tons for Paris gun to deliver a relatively small shell, or 1,300 tons ((three U-boats)) for the massive rail siege mortars Karl, Dora), made a good argument for them being extravagant, grandiose and wasteful.It was never clear why this rag tag squad was chosen. I always really like Lundgren but he is about 57 in this movie (though his fitness level is amazing). He is even passable as an actor, though not as the co-star. Officers in French Foreign Legion, btw, wear dark Kepi (or on combat mission, a helmet), not white as do lower grade legionnaires.Rourke's depiction of a sloppy, long-haired, cowboy hat-wearing, toothpick chewing colonel in 1944 (or at any time in our history) is preposterous and it makes you wonder if he didn't just take charge of his character and, knowing movie desperate for any kind of name actor, said he was going to do this his way (just a guess). The Oddball comparison is not so good since Oddball was a low-grade Sgt, while Rourke plays a "colonel." Are we to believe that this at least battalion commander (or even regimental commander, if he's a full bird colonel) is traveling to division for briefings and what not, in full view of one and two-star generals looking like that? The squad itself is utterly forgettable. I have already forgotten them from 45 minutes ago.The best part of the movie, besides seeing that good old Dolph is looking good and challenging us older guys to stay in great shape, are the excellent depictions of a couple of pieces of German WWII gear: the Sdkfz 251 half track and the long-barrel variant 50mm Pz.IIIM. Both vehicles looked so good that they could have been real - and may have been.And, oh,... taking out the massive "V3" with one 50mm shot from wounded, amateur tank gunner Dolph is ridiculous. Nuff said. Oops... I forgot the idiotic decision to arm Dolph's character with... a 12 gauge riot gun (!!!) is, like Rourke, another feeble device to make this movie stand out somehow. Without two good vehicles and Dolph looking good, I'd have given this one star instead of two.

The chief opportunity to create dramatic tension was lost at the beginning when the drama of the forging of the asinine combat orders and the decision to follow them was left to be told in a few lines of dialogue. Hence, we are left with no reason to care about the rest of the story nor of the men. The idea of conducting extreme physical training under harsh conditions for combat hardened infantrymen is simply silly: the dialogue made it clear that these men knew combat. I stopped watching at that point.

Dolph and his crew of misfits are actually a good fit ... for war. It's one of those B-movies that have a war theme. It's not really a movie that has many mysteries about it. Dolph has to coach a crew of people who no one else wants and from that starting point you pretty much know where this is going.There is conflict within and everything else you could expect from a movie like this. It's decent overall if you like that kind of stuff. It's not Anti-War, it's more heroic than that. And the end suggests a couple of things, that you'll either like or hate. But your decision/mind will have been made up long before that

"Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" director Ryan Little has made his fourth World War II combat film with "War Pigs," but it doesn't surpass his earlier "Saints and Soldiers: The Void." Basically, Little and scenarist Steven Luke, working from a story by Andrew Kightlinger and Adam Emerson, have appropriated two of the biggest World War II studio releases with one from the 1970s. "War Pigs" opens with our hero, Captain Jack Wosick (Luke Goss of "Blade II"), leading Sergeant McGreevy (Chuck Liddell of "Kick Ass 2" and his men into a debacle. All of his men die, but he survives. Wosick believes his orders were screwed up. Officially disgraced, Wosick suffers the loss of a bar until Major A.J. Redding (Mickey Rourke of "The Expendables") shows up and offers Wosick the chance to redeem himself. The plot about the captain leading his men into disaster is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's officer in "Kelly's Heroes" who had lost this bars because he led the wrong attack. Major Redding wants Wosick to take a squad of G.I.s behind enemy lines to obtain information about a long-range German artillery piece that has the potential to wreck deadly havoc onto Allied lines. Wosick getting stuck with a group of misfits recalls "The Dirty Dozen," and he has to whip these guys into shape for the mission. Finally, because they are checking out the big German gun and ultimately wind up destroying it, "War Pigs" evokes memories of the Gregory Peck movie "The Guns of Navarone. At least, Little and his writers draw from the best Twentieth Century combat films about World War II. Little and company add a French Foreign Legion officer to diversify the heroic line-up, and Dolph Lundgren has his own reasons for hating the Nazis as Captain Hans Picault. Most of the combat occurs in the first part of "War Pigs" and in the last half of the movie. The middle of the movie concerns the efforts of Lieutenant Wosick and Picault as they get their misfits in shape for their objective. Wosick goes head-to-head with his new non-com, Sergeant August Chambers (Noah Segan of "Looper"), who abhors officers as much as orders. Eventually, they reconcile themselves to each other, and our heroes embark on their mission. The big problem with "War Pigs" is they spend a lot of time talking before they finally swing into action. During their first encounter with the enemy, Wosick is knocked unconscious when a Nazi potato masher grenade lands nearby, and the Germans capture not only Chambers but also Preacher (Stephen Luke), while Picault and his men stop a Nazi vehicle and kill all the soldiers. Picault has no choice in the matter when a German tank officer spots their hidden American jeep. Meantime, the German patrol that surprised Wosick takes their two prisoners to their headquarters where the huge artillery piece is situated. The interrogation that follows gets pretty rough, but the Americans survive this encounter. Although they have only been ordered to draw a sketch of the gun, Wosick changes their orders. Picault and his men masquerade as Germans and Wosick joins them in a Nazi uniform. Aside from too much talking, the other problem with "War Pigs" is that none of our heroes dies during their foray against the enemy. Everything is too good to be true. Indeed, Picault is wounded, but he survives. Significantly, Picault has to fire only one tank shell to destroy the huge gun. "War Pigs" qualifies as a routine World War II movie with a happy ending. In a sense, "War Pigs" hearkens back to the propaganda combat epics made during World War II that depicted Americans as indestructible. Mickey Rourke makes a strange Major with a Stetson. The Utah scenery effectively substitutes for Europe.