The Men Who Stare At Goats

There sure are a lot of movies out right now that are based on books! I have posted about 2 of 3 already based on books plus this one. There are also at least 2 that I can think of right now that are currently in theaters that are based on a book.


The movie is about exactly what as it sounds and nothing much more. This film is based on a book by Jon Ronson who based his book on his encounter with the New Earth Army. This army run by the United States is a New Age, peace-loving, hippie group who believed that they could access supernatural powers that they could use for good. These powers include walking through walls, making clouds separate, changing minds of other people, and even killing animals just by staring at them.

The main character in the movie is a journalist based off of Ronson and played by Ewan McGregor. This is a great actor to cast for this movie as it makes quite a few references to Star Wars. For example, the New Earth Army soldiers are called "Jedi warriors" and there is also another hippie character in the film named Jango. There are also a number of quotes and motions that imply more references to the Star Wars movies. Not too many that it makes the movie a parody but just enough to make it funny.

The style of this movie is much like that you may find in a Cohen brothers movie (it is not though). It even has some of the same actors from movies like "The Ladykillers". George Clooney casted as another main character did an excellent job playing as a LSD-influenced psycho soldier of the New Earth Army. Kevin Spacey also plays the villain yet again in a film, but he was not that recognizable to me.


It is not really appropriate but it is made for laughs and entertainment, which is exactly what it did. The film included a lot of heavy cussing, and also some very brief nudity of male backsides. In addition there is drug use in the film, even to the point where an entire army base is sabotaged with LSD. You can only imagine what could happen when that base is also full of tanks. It does not promote the use of LSD but rather for laughs and to go with the story.

On the note of how the film shows psychic powers at use is hard to interpret if they wanted to show that this really could happen or not. At most moments(pretty much the whole movie) the New Earth Army is meant to be a big joke to everyone else and also the unbelievable powers that come with it. However, at a few key moments of the movie the powers are shown to work, but then again it could just be a coincidence, it is never said.

As I said earlier, this movie is just made for fun. It's not the best movie of the year, and will not win Academy Awards(except maybe for best actor...). I don't think that the crazy powers are much to be concerned about but you may want to take in mind the other suggestive content. After all just by the title this movie sounds like it is probably making fun of men who are staring at goats.