The problem with the war film, like other genres loaded with cultural classics, is that comparison is inevitable. The reason Saving Private Ryan made more of a tidal wave than a splash was its avant garde cinema style and delicate dissection of patriotism that honors soldiers but warns against militarism. Steven Spielberg’s classic was everything the contemporary war film needed to be, and other than complaints that it’s heavy handed in its climax, it continues to be the standard. So when a film like David Ayer’s Fury rolls into theaters, one wonders its place. Is it a new perspective on war, either stylistically or through content? Is it, like The Hurt Locker, more a psychological thriller than the expected war movie? Sadly, Fury is neither of those things: it is a film that amounts to a remake in spirit, remixing tropes, scenes, and characters into a package as well-worn as the battle-worn soldiers that inhabit it.

Some may call this appraisal unfair, since Fury does have a unique ‘hook.’ This is the first film, to my knowledge, to spend its entirety dramatizing the grueling, terrible, life of a tank crew in a major war. This hook, however, fails to yield a fresh perspective. If any audience member has seen only a handful of classics, the only element of surprise is just how predictable it constantly proves itself to be—who dies, when, and how, can all be figured out minutes into the film. Obviousness is a curse it can’t break. It seemingly balks at reinvention; so, much like the unit that mans the tank from which the film gets its name, Fury lives or dies not by its inventiveness, but by its dependability and consistency on the battlefield. That is to say, Fury is a sturdy sort of film that colors inside the lines, but its grave error is mistaking what it is, a thoroughly reasonable war-action movie, for what it isn’t: a prestige picture.